


The Night Is Long: L'Esprit d'Invention

by Yngvildr the Voracious (Yngvildr_the_Voracious)



Series: Djinns and Gods: Unholy Musings of the Other Prophet Mohammed [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Blasphemy, Elvhen Mythology, Evanuris Headcanons, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Spin Off, The Descent - Freeform, Trespasser DLC, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yngvildr_the_Voracious/pseuds/Yngvildr%20the%20Voracious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwendolyn Murray isn’t alone. However, two peas from the same pod are not always alike. - The story of a very angry French woman in Thedas. A spin off loosely following the events of Keep to The Stars by MaryDragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unearthly Child

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Keep to the Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4651176) by [MaryDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryDragon/pseuds/MaryDragon). 



> Hello, this is an AU of an AU story called Keep to the Stars, listed as an inspiration.   
> It came from the idea that Gwen definitely wasn't alone in Thedas and was confirmed at the time by the discovery of Michael a.k.a. Pennats' DIY piano.  
> I channeled several failed NaNoWriMo projects in this as well as family stories and fears, which means I'm truly invested in it. However, I'm also a broke graduate working illegally so you might have to wait between some updates as I mostly access the Interwebz through my phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can never thank MaryDragon enough.  
> I can never thank Eisen enough. 
> 
> Your story and your patience are life goals.

He spoke in English for some reason. 

 

“I’m fine,” Maryam answered the man before her, using his language, though a bit clumsily. She winced as she rose to her feet, feeling like her ribs were on fire. She turned to the man.

 

His skin was dark, so much so that the “ebony” adjective actually fit and was taller than any person she had ever met, despite having cousins that towered at more than two meters high. He also wore a black frumpy hat and white robes.

 

_ What kind of dude wears robes on a Saturday morning?...  _ She idly wondered.

 

“Where am I?” she asked him, looking around, searching for a crowd, but finding herself on an empty beach. She wasn’t supposed to be on a beach. She tried to anchor herself by looking the man in the eye. His red eyes. 

 

Maryam tried to shake the sleep out of her by blinking several times, but the man’s eyes stayed red. She realised that he had spoken, and she had not heard a word he said.. 

 

“Hmm… Sorry. I don’t speak English very well.” she said, stressing a French accent to her words for good measure. “Can you repeat that?”

“You’re on the coast of Orlais, about a few miles from  _ Halamshiral _ .” the black guy repeated, his eyes narrowing down on her in a way that made her shiver.

  
Maryam’s blood turned cold. Really cold. 

 

“ _ Halamshiral _ ?” she repeated, her tongue suddenly flying with the weightlessness of the word, despite her dry mouth. 

 

She didn’t know what happened, but if her dusty palate was any indication, she probably was fainting from dehydration and blood loss. 

 

*

* *

*

 

She woke up in a cot in what her mind immediately labeled as a cell and she started to feel stress induced cold sweat wet her brow and her back. 

First, she wasn’t wearing her jeans and N7 jacket over her favourite band tee, which meant that she had been uundressed. She wondered where her bag was, of course, not because it had cost her a fortune in shipping fees on Redbubble, but because it held all her valuables: from cell phone to identification, she was in real trouble, especially if she had lost  _ the latter _ . 

 

She shuddered at the idea of having lost the sole and only proof she had on her person that she was a citizen of the French Republic… Inspecting her body, she found that she was unharmed but for a few dotted pink scars on her side that had appeared out of nowhere… A flash of pain went through her ribs as she fingered it and she resolved to leave it alone. Phantom pain sucked, she had learned when she cut her toe on broken glass one day. She still couldn’t properly set foot on the floor despite the wound being twenty years old.

 

And lastly, the cell looked  _ medieval.  _ As in literally medieval. Made of stone, with no window, the door was made of the sturdy kind of wood she had only seen in very old castles. 

 

Maryam absently toyed with the hem of her sleeve as she thought. She was wearing a long black robe instead of her usual attire. The fabric was heavy and actually made her think of what a nun would wear, albeit with a cut similar to that of an  _ abaya _ . 

 

The woman snorted, wondering when was it that she had last wore an  _ abaya _ … The answer was probably ‘ _ the last time I went to the mosque _ ’, eight years ago. Or was it nine? Her thoughts were cut short when the antique door opened. Behind, barring her the exit were three people. Two women who were about as tall as Maryam and the tall black man, holding a tray. They closed the door behind them as the man settled the tray on her cot. 

 

The smell of the fresh bread on it tortured Maryam’s nostrils. 

 

One of the women was wearing a bigger hat with an orange embroidery resembling a flame on it that made Maryam’s stomach drop. 

 

_ Fuck. _

 

The black man, who was too tall to stand in the cell without stooping, his neck in an angle that hurt to think about, bent further down and whispered something in the ear of the woman with the flame hat. Maryam listened intently, but she couldn’t make out the words. 

 

“--Why are you keeping me?--” Maryam demanded in French, trying to sound confident. “--And where am I?--” 

 

The woman with the flame hat ( _ the Revered Mother _ , her mind traitorously supplied. _ )  _ spoke, but Maryam understood none of it. It probably showed on her face, because the black man resumed in English. 

 

“--She is asking for your name.--” the man said in mangled French. Maryam didn’t recognize the heavy accent.

“I don’t know yours. Why would I give mine?” Maryam bit back in his tongue, feeling like she was about to vomit, but staying defiant, her spine as straight as she could make it. 

 

She carefully smoothed down the garment she was wearing to hide her discomfort. 

 

“Where am I? Where are my clothes? My bag?” she asked again when she felt the silence stretch out. She felt out of place, she wasn’t supposed to be here. Saturdays were for groceries in the morning, video games in the afternoon. Not medieval larping. 

 

The black man ( _ the brother),  _ whispered in the Reverend Mother’s ear again. The old woman turned to Maryam and extended her hand, saying: 

 

“Coppélia.”

 

Maryam swallowed her own saliva nervously and watched the other two. The other woman, a younger one wearing no hat, with brown eyes too big for her face and impossibly thin lips did the same: 

 

“Théa.” she said.

 

Finally, the tall black man bowed, but did not offer his own hand: 

 

“Havard.” he grunted. 

 

Maryam shook the women’s hands, spending half a second too long shaking Théa’s ( _ What the fuck are those ears?!?!) _ and offered hers to the man. 

 

“I cannot touch the flesh of women. It is my vow.” he simply explained, his red eyes never leaving her face. 

 

“-- _ Well, at least you can look at me… _ \--” she mumbled in French, making him raise an eyebrow in a facial expression that made him look like Teal’c in Stargate. 

 

She sighed noisily to hide her discomfort and a potential nervous giggle. 

 

“My name is Maryam.” she finally told them. “And I would like to go home. Preferably, with my bag and all the things in it.”

 

Havard took a moment to translate her words, this time, not in a whisper, but in a normal voice. The tongue he used made Maryam’s hackles rise. She had never ever heard this language. It sounded like Russian and yet it wasn’t. Having a Russian room mate during her exchange program with MIT (and having been raised bilingual) made her notice speech patterns rather quickly. This was completely different. Was it Ukrainian?

 

“We do not know where are the belongings you are talking about. You were alone and injured on the coast with only the...  _ clothes _ you had on your back.” Havard said. 

 

Maryam started to panic. She was frantically straightening invisible wrinkles in her robe. She couldn’t. It couldn’t be. 

She had been carrying a bag, that she remembered. Her bag. Her very expensive custom made bag with an _artwork of_ _The Fucking Dread Wolf on it._

And she didn’t know if it was with her when she travelled to…

 

“Am I in Thedas?” she asked, her throat constricted, tears ready to spill.

“Yes.” Havard answered, his eyes suddenly seeming to glint with a sliver of empathy. The Chantry women suddenly drew too close for comfort. 

 

Maryam had trouble breathing. She could only see a blur of white, black and red before her as she fell again, this time, caught by gentle arms. 

 

*

* *

*

 

She woke up to the sight of Théa. She fed her, helped her drink and showed her a sort of sponge and a basin full of water, vividly miming the actions corresponding to bathing. Maryam tried to breathe again. However, she felt like it was a hard thing to do when in the ass end of an imaginary world. In a religious building, something she had resolved to stay clear of since she hit her majority. Wearing clothes that weren’t hers. It made Maryam’s skin itch.

  
But she was fed and Théa, after she bathed, took her to a cloister of sorts and breathing the fresh air, smelling faintly of the sea, helped her relax. That same evening, another sister came to see her in her cell and brought her her freshly laundered clothes. She made a gesture that made Maryam think that she had sown something. 

 

“Why?” Maryam asked, strangely keeping speaking English. “Was it broken? I mean, torn?” She corrected herself, miming the tearing of cloth or paper in two parts with her hands. 

 

The sister didn’t answer, turning her back with only the hint of a sneer. Théa brought her to communal dinner and the French woman suffered through the long prayers in which she didn’t understand any word aside from “Andraste” and another word she guessed might be “Maker”. It didn’t help Maryam’s breathing, it even robbed her of her appetite. 

  
She didn’t need another reminder that she was in the fucking Dragon Age.


	2. Platform 9 3/4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Eisen for agreeing to beta most of this.  
> I think he removed most of the gallicisms, I couldn't be more grateful. 
> 
> Note that for now :  
> \--means French/Tevene--  
> ##means Arabic/Elven, Elvhen##
> 
> Sometimes, Maryam won't understand a word in Common and it'll be marked with **

The life at the cloister of Our Lady of the Golden Shore was as simple as in any monastery. Prayer five times a day, times to reflect on faith by reading holy texts and singing the Chant of Light. Chores were assigned in a rotation, though for some reason, Théa and some other brothers and sisters seemed to almost always draw the short straw, Maryam noticed. She spent the first few weeks with Mother Coppélia who tried to tutor her in their tongue, but she was an abysmal teacher. She seemed really nice, exactly what you would expect of a Revered Mother or the imam’s wife, really, but Maryam couldn’t learn with that woman. She simply assumed that because Maryam learned one concept, she would grasp another, but this tongue was really different than everything she had learned before. Actually, it felt like learning English all over again. Maryam didn’t actually manage to talk in this language in full sentences until she reached Engineering school, and then, only the mandatory year of study abroad had her show any significant progress on the painful road to learning a third tongue as an adult, her accent noticeable and imperfect. She knew it was a common issue for people who grew up in bilingual families and communities, however, she didn’t have the words to explain this to Mother Coppélia who seemed to want to communicate with Maryam and quickly. 

 

At one point, Maryam had Havard explain several things about this so called ‘Common Tongue’ to her, one day at supper. It had been a month and she still didn’t know how to greet people properly! 

 

Coppélia seemed to disapprove, but the useless lessons stopped. Maryam felt much lighter for it. She hadn’t realised how stifling the Reverend Mother’s constant hovering had been. Anyway, one didn’t simply go back to school after leaving it for several years and she felt better studying the Chant with Havard. At least, he explained the words before the type of complicated grammatical concept it was. 

 

*

**

*

 

Maryam took it upon herself to trail the Andrastian Qunari. He was the only one who could understand her while also very different from the other lay brothers and sisters around. For one, his skin was far too dark, his eyes way too red and he was even more stoic and uptight than the others. As a result, the others, aside from Théa and the handful of elven priests, always fled his gaze and hastened their pace when crossing him.

 

To Maryam, however, he was a lifeline.

 

No one had been able to tell her how she had come here, so far and Mother Coppélia’s language class had failed, so she resolved to go at it the way she had done with English: using Havard like she had shamelessly used her Russian but French speaking roommate. He was not happy to play the wet nurse for her, but he accepted to help, on the condition that she woke up every morning for the vespers with him to accompany him in prayer. Maryam grudgingly accepted, but she refused to pray herself. She didn’t like it at all, it reminded her of her mother, but if room and board as well as language lessons were provided in exchange, she would be abiding to their rules. 

 

They were simple to follow. Actually, it very much looked like Maryam’s own daily life at home. 

 

Every morning, she would wake up extremely early to read fanfictions that had been updated during the night and when the hour of the  _ Fajr _ , the morning prayer, ended, she’d leave her room and help her mother prepare breakfast and a lunchbox for herself. She would then go to work and arrive an hour early, drinking a coffee alone before her computer, writing her own fanfictions on her work computer and sending them in a zipped file to her personal email. She’d then work, speak to a few colleagues, sometimes visit a site or a lab, offering her insight as a consultant in electrical and civil engineering in many companies from aeronautics to construction. The boss of her agency even had a few clients with an environmental concern to address and she’d happily point them in the right direction. Sometimes, she’d even conceive a few theoretical plans herself. 

 

At the end of the day, she would commute back home. If it was winter, her mother would spare her the  _ Maghrib  _ by praying as soon as the sun was down before she came home. In summer, mother and daughter would not exchange a glance as the latter would spend the time it took to recite the  _ salat _ in her room, usually on a small idea for a little more practical application she would never find the time and energy to build or on next Paris Comic Con cosplay.

 

Then, Maryam would play the game of the moment - usually Mass Effect - which she would replay often, or League of Legends. She had worked her way to one of the higher leagues, where she could meet the best players that weren’t actually being paid to play in tournaments, but simply to have fun at the highest, most hardcore level. She would mute her mic whenever she was convinced by one of them to come on Skype, preferring not to broadcast her gender, lest people start to get suspicious or jealous. Some of them found out anyway, but were surprisingly cool about it.

 

This past year, though…had been dominated by Dragon Age. She had played Origins long ago, enjoying it, though she still prefered the Mass Effect series until her older sister Fatima told her to play Inquisition one day. She had decided not to fast forward through the second game after taking some advice on the Bioware forums and was not disappointed by the characters she found there - especially Fenris. 

 

Then her mind and heart had been swept away by the third game making her fall into a pit of despair once a certain ancient elf had turned his back on her. 

 

Maryam had felt like she had never known love until that day. But if she was in Thedas, truly… she sighed, she would have to get out of this Chantry for that, if it was even possible.

 

She wasn’t even allowed out of her room when her period came, unexpectedly. It was something she could have foreseen. Her cycle was a damn mess to begin with and with her bag gone, so was her birth control pills. The only way she could have normal periods instead of slowly bleeding out for three weeks twice a year. Maryam completely lost it. She missed her cup. She fashioned a sort of diaper with a cloth and considered going to Havard about it to make it quick. 

 

The moment she uttered the word period, he turned around and started to walk quickly. When Maryam followed, he grabbed the first sister he found on the way, told her terse sounding words and directed her to Maryam, who was too damn tired from the blood loss to put up with someone to whom she could only say three words.   

 

The woman, Julia, however, smiled a lot and showed the cloths she used as a pad and how she cleaned and reused them. She gave her two. Maryam had a hard time trying to tell her she needed more, two per four hours wouldn’t dry quick enough for her to reuse. Julia gave her two more and shrugged with a scowl that seemed to say “sorry” on her face. Maryam thanked her in Common and let herself be directed to a small room with an equally small tub. Still, it was a bigger and more comfortable way to clean one’s thighs and butts than the small basin in her cell. 

 

After this, Maryam only woke up to clean herself and change the rags in her panties. She probably would have killed for a Diane tab. After almost a fortnight, it stopped and Maryam was relieved. She didn’t fancy an infection. 

 

*

**

*

 

Bit by bit, Maryam discovered the stories behind the brothers and sisters of Our Lady of the Golden Shore. Théa had been in the bloody alienage purge that had happened in one of the books Maryam had yet to read. She had been welcomed in the Chantry and had stayed rather than risk a dangerous trek through the forests of the Dales in the middle of a civil war to find a Dalish clan. 

 

Paul was an orphan who had been found by elven hunters on the road. At the time, the alienage they wanted to drop him in had been suffering a terrible epidemic and to save his life, they had given him to the Chantry instead, where he had been content to take the cloth rather than try to live a beggar.

 

Marguerite was a dwarf, casteless, by the look of her cheeks. She had come to live on the surface, only to find herself repulsed by the Merchant Guild’s and the Carta’s ways. It was exactly what she had been trying to flee in Dust Town. Remembering the dwarven priest of Andraste from Origins that she had never took seriously (Maryam hadn’t either…), she had tried her luck and found peace in the Maker too. 

 

Julia was a human and had taken a vow, though Maryam didn’t understand it all at first. Her parents had been minor nobility with a plethora of mage children. When Julia was born, they were too afraid to face another disappointment and sent her to the Chantry at age two. When she reached her sixteenth birthday without any sign of an active connection to the Fade, they had wanted her back to become their heir. However, Julia let them know she would not go back, saying she had to help her parents feel love for her brothers and sisters in the Circles and she would take formal sisterhood vows if they did not chose one of her elder siblings as an heir. She was a strong supporter of freedom for mages and had rooted for the Inquisition since day one, having been to Haven with some others. 

 

When Maryam understood that the woman was not fighting to get her parents hanged for their offense, she was cool with it. A poor incomprehension that had come from a poor ear for the Common Tongue. 

 

And last but not least, the Revered Mother had been a prostitute in Val Chevin, long ago, and made it her mission to save her sisters whenever they showed up. She even wrote to other Chantries and monasteries to propose them to send her any woman of little virtue to show them a better path… Or so the stories said. Coppélia indeed took in a lot of prostitutes, but Maryam thought it a front, or maybe she had been a noble’s mistress. She acted too stuck up to have such humble beginnings, the hard life described not matching the education and elitism she had shown Maryam during her lessons. 

 

Havard, however, proved resistant, even when she questioned him with her childlike grasp of the Common Tongue to please her teacher.

 

She had heard from Théa that it was a name he had assumed when he had traded his battle axe for the frock after protecting traveling clerics, including Julia, to something she called a **Conclave**. Asking for a definition of the word, Théa described to her the early events of Dragon Age Inquisition and it sent Maryam in a panic attack that only resorbed when they went for a stroll in the cloister, the young woman with big eyes looking at her warily.

 

“When Havard arrive to Golden Shore?” Maryam asked, still struggling with the correct pronunciation.

“A month after the Inquisition found Skyhold. He was recommended by Mother Gisele. She’s become quite influential since the events of the Conclave, he almost left when he heard of the **siege** of Adamant -the **Grey Warden fortress**.” Théa answered in a whisper. “It was likely a crisis of faith. He probably thought they’d need him. Or that he’d miss something. He was raised a warrior after all.”

 

Maryam nodded absently. Observing Havard lead the Chant this same evening, she now felt like she understood him better. He was like a soldier suffering from post traumatic stress disorder who had found solace in faith when finding the Inquisition. A faith he seemed invested in.

 

She knew now that Adamant had passed, but she didn’t know the rest… What of the events of ‘Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts?’ During the next week, she peppered everyone with questions about Halamshiral. Was it pretty? Did the Empress live there? Can we go there?

 

In the end, she resolved to ask Revered Mother Coppélia about making the trip. It was not unusual for one of the members of the community to go there. They earned a few coin to buy themselves fancy Orlesian soap, though they lived with very few, and had the right to own books. Most would make the week long trip to visit the Winter Market in a group. 

Mother Coppélia however, was categorically opposed to Maryam leaving Golden Shore. She was actually quite upset when presented with the idea.

 

“You have not been here for three months yet.” she said in a deliberately slow and exaggerated manner that reminded Maryam of her patronizing Physics teacher in her first ywar of -- _ Ingé school--. _ “You can barely speak the Common Tongue! I can’t let you outside of these walls. Anything could happen!” 

 

Maryam tried to say that it didn’t matter because she had informations that could help the Inquisitor, because she wanted to help a member of her entourage in particular… But she couldn’t. 

 

First, because aside from the name of the Inquisitor, her time literally cloistered at Golden Shore did not, indeed, prepare her for the outside world. She didn’t know who the Inquisitor was. She thought she was a “she” thinking of her own elf Quizzie, but aside from some clues that made her thought she was a Qunari, she didn’t even know her actual gender since Common, like English, has few gendered accords. Maryam didn't even know who the Hero of Ferelden was and what choices the Champion of Kirkwall had made. In fact, everyone had seemed to keep her in the dark concerning the outside world, focusing on small tales and religious texts. 

 

Maryam struggled to explain, kept lapsing back into French to try to gather her words, then translate them into English and into the Common Tongue. It was frustrating. She had spent three months with them, and the only words she knew were all contained in the Chant of Light!

 

“##Motherfucker!##” she exclaimed, so frustrated about being unable to explain herself in one tongue that she conjured up another, her favourite to curse in.

 

Mother Coppélia gasped. Maryam turned to her, finding her paler than the thin snow that had started to cover the tiles of the monastery. The old woman, her eyes big as saucers, fled from the room and the French woman heard the audible click of the lock, making her throat constrict. 

 

_ Nononononono… What did I say? _ _  
_ _ Did she understand that? _

 

The door unlocked. Two human brothers were there and escorted her to her room without a word. Maryam did not resist, not even knowing how to inquire about what was so shocking about her swearing in Arabic. 

 

Her door opened to give her the simple fare of Chantry meals, but no one entered truly, not even Théa who looked at her with her big brown eyes full of apprehension whenever it was her turn. In the end, since she didn’t have to see anyone anymore or pretend to reflect on her faith, Maryam chose to wear her Epica t-shirt and her N7 jacket above the robes and the torn jeans beneath. She had asked the woman who had brought her laundered and mended clothes to her about them, but if any cleric had seen her green --Converse--, they kept it to themselves.

 

That’s when she remembered that they had been patched up. She inspected the job, finding the stitches even in each garment. The sister who had done the t-shirt had probably liked the sultry Simone Simons because she had sewn a piece of fabric to the rest from the inside of the shirt rather than ruining the printed design, allowing Maryam to unstitch it  and examine the holes…

 

The polyester had burned on the edges, as if a small round object had gone through it at a terrible speed. Fingering the matching scars on her ribs, Maryam shivered. 

 

_ What the fuck happened to me? _

 

She had to know. She had to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also noted that I uploaded chapter 3 before chapter 2. This has been corrected today the 23rd of May.


	3. Havard's Helping Hand

Maryam was not exactly a vocal woman, no - she acted shy and composed unless she was making passive aggressive comments to her mother. But she was of Algerian descent. Her ancestors had bled and died for France, an imperialist country that was not theirs. They stole their lands and never considered them more than second-rate humans… at least until the Algerians had fought back to gain their independence and right to own the homes.  
   
Maryam had met her grandparents on several occasions, and whenever they spoke of the War, they would do so in hushed tones. It felt like everyone had lost someone, then.  
   
So when Théa managed to slip into her room - which was now constantly locked - one night, to ask her how she knew the language of the elves, Maryam could only laughed.  
   
“It made Mother Coppélia furious,” Théa interrupted her, alarmed. “She doesn’t like hearing that language at all. She’s planning to do something to you because of it...”  
   
“What?” Maryam squeaked, forgetting the need for discretion at the sudden revelation.  
   
“You’re alone and far from your home!” Théa said, trying to convey her thoughts in a way she would be understood. “So with the other brothers and sisters, we sold some of our last **belongings** during our last trip to the Winter Market to buy you passage **back** to Tevinter.”  
   
Maryam’s eyes grew wide and she couldn’t help but burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that Théa, without any other explanation, scampered away before she was caught.  
   
“I am NOT from Tevinter!” Maryam howled down the corridor, her Common made even more incomprehensible by her shrill yelling. “ --I am Maryam bint Suledin Al Ghilani and I am French! YOU HEAR ME?! I am a fucking French Algerian!- - ##And you motherfuckers are going to STOP TOYING WITH ME!##” she finished, languages mixing with each other in her fury.  
   
Maryam slammed the door. Her throat was sore, she wondered if it might even break. She cried into the night. She was scared and tired, the solitary confinement making her mind slowly shrivel. She simply wanted to go back home to Fatima, to her mother. She would even stay in the same room as the one she prayed in and make it up to her for all the years of cold shoulders and harsh accusing stares that she had been giving her since that fateful day Mohammed left. After all, life was too short, she thought as she fingered the puckered scarring on her ribs.  
   
*  
* *  
*  
   
The next one to barge into her room in the middle of the night was Havard.  
   
She had not been sleeping, locked up as she was. She usually did that during the day and only guessed it was night when she saw the accumulated plates on the table she used as a desk of sorts, reading, and trying to make sense of the symbols in the Chant of Light’s copy she had been given and repeating the parts she knew out loud, trying to nip an accent in the bud.  
   
For someone who had sworn not to touch female flesh again, the Qunari was a bit rough when he removed her jacket and t-shirt from her person, leaving the white frock on, and shoved a black hat on her head.  
   
“It’s past midnight!” Maryam complained in English.  
   
“You were not asleep.” Havard countered, walking fast on impossibly long legs.  
   
“Where are we going?” she asked as he led her through the corridors of the monastery.  
   
“Speak Common.” he insisted.  
   
He would always insist, but that had been why Maryam had spent all her time with him. He was taciturn and laconic, but she learned better while talking. That’s why her English had been rubbish until her exchange year in Boston.  
   
“Where we go?” Maryam repeated, hating how she spoke no better than a toddler.  
   
“Away.” was the only answer.  
   
Maryam wanted to stop him to ask him to repeat the word in English when he opened double doors that led to the outside.  
   
She doubled over as if she had taken a blow to the gut.  
   
The skies were clear and the cold air did little to help her wake up from this strange dream. The last time Maryam had seen so many stars was when she had last been dragged to Algeria for the summer holidays. All the way up mountains of the Atlas, where the stars had been shining and she had spent the night with a fourth cousin. She’d had a crush on him, and she cherished the time they spent finding the constellations and learning their names in Arabic.  
   
Had she been more Algerian than French, she might have been ashamed to be alone with a boy and kiss him under the moonlight. Had she been more French than Algerian, she might have been ashamed to kiss a member of her family, even they were only a cousin to whom she was related to through marriage.  
   
But she was both and this was neither France nor Algeria.  
   
The sky was illuminated by stars utterly unknown to her. They shone with such a force that she went utterly still, having trouble breathing under the oppressing weight of the enormous moon suspended in the dark ceiling of the world, shadowing a littler one, the only one she had seen from the tiny cloister of Golden Shore and assumed wrongly, that it was hers.  
   
“ _## If you exist, whoever you are, please take me home ##_ …” she whispered in her mother’s tongue, still stunned.  
   
Havard took her in his arms and threw her on his shoulder. She snickered when she caught a glimpse of his gloves. Well, this explains that…  
   
They walked for a while. A very long while in complete and utter silence, leaving the beach that didn’t have anything golden to it anymore. Unless you counted the gilded bars of the monastery that faded behind them, until she couldn’t see it anymore and it was replaced with rocks, thin trees and moss.  
   
They found horses and supplies near a small cavern where Havard gently let Maryam down. He set two bedrolls and Maryam sighed.  
   
“You won’t tell me anything, no?” She asked.  
   
“Sleep.” He simply said, very quickly, turning his back on her and the fire he had started.  
   
Maryam didn’t sleep at all. It made her first riding lesson very hard. She kept sliding and her thighs were so sore, she was pretty sure they’d start to blister. Their progression to wherever their destination was thus very slow on the rocky terrain.  
   
“Tell me what happen!” Maryam continued to pester Havard in the Common Tongue, every time they stopped at nightfall.  
   
“Mother Coppélia was wrong.” Havard simply said.  
   
“How.”  
   
“She wanted to have you killed.”  
   
“Kill me? Or someone kill me so no blood hand?”  
   
“The latter.”  
   
“Why.”  
   
“People with different tongues and beliefs than her are not people to her. Especially if their ears are...”  
   
Well, that Maryam understood and it wasn’t hard to guess what the last word referred to, especially since Théa’s reaction to the French woman’s mastery over the Arabic tongue.  
   
“But she knew that for a long time!” Maryam exclaimed in English. “Why now?”  
   
“Bad memories, bad experiences sprinkled with prejudice… And a political agenda. She wanted a Seer too.” Havard told her, slowly in Common still.  
   
The Game , Maryam thought, bitterly. Then, she frowned.  
   
“ Seer ?” She asked, the word in Common, hard in her throat.  
   
“Seer.” he repeated, in English this time.  
   
“Why would she want a seer?”  
   
“Because the Inquisition has one. And the Sunburst Throne is empty.”  
   
“I could have told her: she’s never going to become Divine. There are only three women in this world who can and the one who will is going to be chosen by the Inquisitor.” Maryam said, somehow trusting Havard with the information. She had not spoken to anyone of the game, too afraid to be taken advantage of. Now Havard was saying that Coppélia had known and wanted to.  
   
“She would have killed you sooner, had she known.”  
   
Maryam shivered. She was facing the fire, basking in it really, so it felt strange.  
It felt strange to realise that she had been close to become a tool, a puppet… A dead body.  
   
“I don’t remember hearing about a Seer in the Inquisition.” she chose to say, staying in truthful waters.  
   
“Like you, she came in strange clothes, speaking only Qunlat.”  
   
“Qunlat? But we’re speaking English!”  
   
“What is English ?”  
   
Maryam thought of Théa who thought she was from Tevinter and Mother Coppélia who heard her speak two words in her mother’s tongue and thought it was elven.  
   
“## Motherfucker ##” she whispered under her breath. “It’s the language spoken by the British and the American people among others. They dominate my world culturally and economically so many countries use it as their official language and everyone who wants to have a good job and make money or be famous need to speak it. Like me when I went to study abroad in a prestigious university.”  
   
“It is your Common Tongue, then…” Havard reflected. “The night you yelled in Tevene…”  
   
“It was French. Mixed up with some Arabic. They’re the first languages I learned. My parents comes from Algeria but my sib… my sister and I were born in France. It used to be one of the Common Tongues a long time ago, but they lost wars and influence.” she added, not wanting to explain the Occupation and the decolonisation to someone not of her world.  
   
She also almost spoke of Mohammed, but she refrained, feeling even colder than before, her pink scars itching.  
   
“What other tongues do you know?” Havard asked.  
   
Surprised by his sudden curiosity, Maryam humoured him.  
She had learned Spanish at school and studied Latin, but she barely understood either now. Not that it mattered for Latin!  
   
“And I speak Common now!” She added in common.  
   
He had a beautiful smile, she realised as he graced her with the precious zigomatica movement.  
   
“And you, tell me? Where are you from?”  
   
“You don’t know?” He asked, his eyebrow rising.  
   
“Whoever this seeress is, she’s just someone who read a very elaborate and complicated book.” Maryam explained. “And you are not in it. I would have known.”  
   
Havard sighed and spoke. Maryam was dumbstruck.  
   
He was a Saarebas.  
   
That explained the way the front of his hat constantly looked frumpy. He showed her briefly the stubs of his horns and now that the fire lit his face, she saw the scars around his mouth. How could she have not realised, she admonished herself!  
   
“You healed me!” She exclaimed. “On the beach before you brought me to Golden Shore!”  
   
Havard nodded, seemingly pleased with her gratitude.  
   
“Arvaraad and I had… An unusual relationship. One that is not of the Qun. When we were in Seheron, we decided to turn our back to Par Vollen and explore the world together. Varaad did not make it to Rivain.”  
   
Maryam felt her heart squeeze. Havard had stopped smiling.  
   
“I’m sorry for your loss.” She said in English.  
   
Havard stared at the flames. Maryam went to sleep.  
   
The night after, Havard told her that they were going to Halamshiral.  
   
“Théa thought the Inquisition’s Seer might know what to do with you. We agreed.”  
   
“We?”  
   
“The non human brothers and sisters. I am to petition the Orlesian Court to show the extent of the faith and devotion of our group to the Maker and His Bride. This way, Coppélia will look like someone who only accept filth in her ranks.”  
   
Maryam laughed.  
   
“This is actually a great idea!” Maryam told him. “That way she’ll be shunned. No wonder why she’s not in the g… book.”  
   
She almost slipped. Better it stays a book for now. She didn’t know what this Seeress had told everyone and there were indeed books. Fatima had read them all, but not Maryam. She had all the Mass Effect comics, though.    
   
“Whose idea was it?”  
   
“Théa.” Havard said with a smile. It did resemble the elven woman.  
   
During their slow journey from the beach to the big city, she saw both villages and wilderness. It reminded her of the car trip from Paris to the village her grandmother was born in on the Algerian side of the Atlas mountains. With less sand and more harsh and bitter cold - she had a tough time warding herself from it when it came to the neck. However, she rode better now, albeit sidesaddle with too strong a grip on the seat and Havard leading her reins. Which meant they couldn’t go faster than a slow canter. Her grandfather would be ashamed. He was a horse breeder.  
   
Her brother came to mind, but she stopped immediately, the very thought of him making her spine wet with cold sweat and the closed wound on her ribs ache with phantom pain.  
   
“And how exactly are we going to approach the Seeress?” Maryam asked in English as they replenished their supplies in a village. “If she’s from my world and she read the book, she’s probably some defenseless maiden with a big guard. She’s so perfect that the Commander probably has her knocked up with a few blonde babies...” she added, gathering some ideas from some of the most hilarious self insert fics she’d read.  
   
She did hope the woman hadn’t made a move on Solas, she hated such fics with a passion. Solas was meant to be with a Lavellan. The romance didn’t mean anything if the recipient of his affections was not a Dalish elf. That was Maryam’s stance.  
   
Incidentally, she accepted, albeit bitterly, that it meant that in her own set of particular circumstances, she didn’t stand a chance either.  
   
“The Inquisition has been invited to a ball in Halamshiral. They are in peace talks-”  
   
“Between Grand Duke Gaspard and Empress Celene. Will we have time? There is a murder plot against the Empress, they’ll be busy…” Maryam interrupted him.  
   
“The ball lasts seven days.”  
   
“ --SEPT-- … SEVEN DAYS?” She exclaimed, “Oh, yes, Medieval…” she calmed herself when she noticed looks being thrown her way.  
   
“Speak Common.” Havard prompted.  
   
“So if I want to get help by the Seeress.” Maryam carefully started. “I need to go to peace talks.”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“What do I tell them?” She asked.  
   
“Perfect sentence.” Havard laconically said instead of answering.  
   
“Thank you. I can’t help. Adamant is over. Halamshiral, will have Seeress. What am I to do? I can’t help. They have help. I’m… no… no...”  
   
“Useful. Useless.” Havard supplied. “I don’t think so. Andraste has sent a Herald and a Seeress to guide her. If you truly are from this different world the Seeress comes from, then like them, you too have a purpose .”  
   
“ Purpose ?” Maryam asked.  
   
“Yes. Purpose.”  
   
Maryam didn’t feel much better. It didn’t exactly make sense to her. Mostly because everything was based on the will of a God (L.O.L.) who had turned his back on his creation (M.D.R.) twice (AYY LMAO) after they tried to visit his place and killed his wife and prophetess.  
   
And what scientific evidence did they have of God existing?  
   
Well, Darkspawn and Tevinter… but Mecca had existed since long before Jibril visited Muhammad to share Divine wisdom - Minrathous being mentioned in the Chant did not make the Maker real, just like the continued existence of Jerusalem did not make God real. Neither did it prove the existence of any supernatural creature. Myths explained a lot of natural and supernatural phenomenons: werewolves, creation and storms, to name a few.  
   
One thing always remained the same to her: the scientific method and the theories it infirmed or confirmed. If it was a system of beliefs, Maryam would believe in it.  
   
She was loathe to admit that to someone who had probably saved her life and taught her a new language, and any explanation she had would have to wait until the evening.  
   
In the village, while they were shopping, if one could even say that in their case, she saw a woodcutter and his son. The boy was sitting, bored. Throughout the village, there had been several similarly bored children. It seemed like in times of war, despite the truce, the people couldn’t take care the kids. Especially the orphans.  
   
They were recognizable. They were the most haggard looking, the ones with the unkempt hair a parent wasn’t smoothing and the haunted look of someone who had seen too much. Her sister had had that look. But her Fatima was an adult and a professional who rationalised everything but her love of video games.  
   
“When do we leave?” She asked Havard.  
   
“Tomorrow at dawn.”  
   
Maryam looked around. They would be sleeping at the Inn where the owner had been too afraid and too poor to refuse Havard’s coin because of his race. She felt indebted to the mage turned priest, to Théa, Paul, Marguerite, Julia… All of the less popular brothers and sisters of Our Lady of the Golden Shore. Maybe she could thank them…  
   
She asked as best she could what the woodcutter would not use. There was no smithy in the village, but Maryam asked for permission to use the screws and pegs the villagers would not miss. She had had already bought strings and threads. Intrigued, the villagers murmured as she worked.  
   
When she was a kid, she often tried her hand at woodcarving with any shed wood from the old park’s aging trees, only to go back home with her hands bloody, so she enrolled the idle and the older children and kept it simple. Soon, she had panes and pointy teeth which, when she was alone in the room they rented, formed a quite ugly and crude dragon whose wings  and asymmetrical maw moved when she tugged.  
   
Well, it should be enough , she sighed as she reserved her surprise for the morning. She knew Havard wasn’t sleeping, so when she settled on the cot, she talked.  
   
“From what I heard, this seeress is probably just a fraud, someone who took her knowledge of our modern societies, made this Skyhold healthier by setting up a sanitation system and saving lives with foreknowledge of some of the events she knew would be happening. Typical Godhood syndrome.”  
   
The Andrastian kossith, however, did not answer or even react, so she settled herself on the straw mattress, which felt divine after those few days on the road and slept like a baby.  
   
*  
**  
*  
   
The villagers were impressed. She said it was nothing, but they still gave them extra provisions for the road in thanks. Maryam was happy the kids had a toy dragon to play with.  
   
Then she thought of Thom “Blackwall” Rainier. Could she be useful in commissioning parts from him and making toys… A flash of Cullen made her think of the Arbor Wilds. Did she have the right to design weapons for them?  
   
She discarded the idea. She had played too much Mass Effect, she would not uplift any race or country unless it truly saved lives.  
   
Or maybe…  
   
The legends around the miracle of Skyhold having a pleasant smell any time of the year and its denizens rarely falling ill sounded like proper urban planning to Maryam, she was useless on that point now. Could they use electricity? Could magic or lyrium power a plant like wind, water or nuclear fission would? Skyhold was in the mountains, could she harness the elements and bring light bulbs and telegraphs to Skyhold?  
   
She’d have to be careful of energy costs, Thedas didn’t need global warming. Thankfully, she had read that new prototypes of light bulbs could absorb the excess of heat and redistribute it. The technology demanded to know how to produce carbon or platinum (-- la base !--) with a special crystal. Then heat the metal filament at a temperature close to three thousand degrees. Where would she find materials for the filament? Where would she find glassblowers? And the crystal? She had read the article about energy efficient incandescent bulbs in a recent MIT publication but hadn’t really registered what kind of material it was made of at the time...  
   
Maryam sighed as the thought finished its course in her brains and naturally fell down a mental cliff to its death.  
She was an engineer and she felt useless as fuck.


	4. Shindig

Finally, they arrived at Halamshiral after ten days of agonizingly slow travel, but Maryam still had no clue what to do. Had Coppélia not threatened her life, she thought she might even have gone back to the monastery. Life had been simple there. She missed Théa and the others and Havard would very probably go back there too once he was finished. Coppélia would have too hard a time getting rid of a Qunari, especially one this stubborn and she simply couldn’t afford the Crows, that was sure...

 

Havard guided them through the city as if he belonged there. People seemed to recognize him. Human nobles with masks turned their heads, but seemed to secretly approve rather than being just snobby. Elves and even some little dwarves saluted him and children, mostly street urchins, crowded his gigantic legs as he walked.

He offered each a benediction, never stopping by, always moving and Maryam had to actually grip his arm to stay by his side in this sea of people.

 

“This way is the Alienage.” Havard finally said when they arrived to their destination. “Never get closer to the doors than this.”

 

The Alienage entrance was two great metal doors without any kind of adornment or sign. Maryam thought of that day she had to wait in front of a prison. They looked exactly like that and it made her ribs itch.

 

They passed the great doors of the hovel the elves lived in, and entered a small rundown chapel next to it.

 

The building looked like the mosque from Maryam’s early childhood, back when they still lived in Lagny. A few planks, some chairs, a cheap statue of Andraste and here they were, worshipping as if they were in the Grand Mosque of Djenné.

 

She liked those people better than those who thought themselves too good for a wooden idol and a yoga mat instead of an expensive prayer cot woven in Mecca’s sweatshops. She feared both groups, though.

 

The inside was quite dark, but the people smiled and seemed happy to be there. They talked of the Maker, of Andraste, of the civil war and the peace talks at the ball. Maryam couldn’t believe it would happen so soon, that she was so near a place where events from the game would unfold, albeit very differently. It sent butterflies in her belly. (Seriously, seven days? What kind of fashion porn would Joséphine come up with? Would she even? They definitely couldn’t dance, sweat and bleed in the same fuck ugly red uniforms from the game! They simply had to suffer through it so the game developers would have an easier time making the actual game. It simply had to!)

 

She let herself be led to a cell even smaller than the one at Golden Shore. Havard told her he’d get her for the next prayers. Trusting the man, Maryam undressed and started to sponge bath with the water that was provided and a cloth.

 

She longed for a hot shower, but now, she’d settle with simply not having to ride a horse over several kilometers. She fell asleep quite quickly, considering the turmoil in her head and the looming shadow of a lost brother.

 

*

**

*

 

Maryam’s danger bells rung: It turned out that Théa was a very good friend of a woman named Briala.

That Briala. That little bitch. Maryam cursed herself for not reading that fucking novel when she had the chance. Aside from what had been in the game, she didn’t know much. She had been Celene’s lover, she had been her spymaster, she didn’t agree with the culling of the Halamshiral alienage a few years prior and left Celene hanging, dubbing herself an ambassador of the elven people of the cities. That last point was something Maryam had always admired, as it was extremely clever, no matter what she thought of what Briala had done in Dragon Age Inquisition (trying to silence the people who knew of her affair with the Empress, for example…).

 

So it seemed Maryam was stuck playing a very deadly game. The Grand Game.

 

“We are not doing anything dangerous enough to cause death.” Havard told her. “As far as others know, you are an elf blooded woman who is following us because the Revered Mother refused to let you take your vows.”

“Thank you.” she said in Common.

“It would be wise to pretend you have been vowing not to speak anything but the Chant until your situation is resolved.”

  
Maryam nodded deeply. This was also a great idea and she knew a lot of the Chant already, her learning accelerated by finding that it actually rhymed in Common. It would however require that she be extremely discreet when approaching the Inquisition agents… If only she could write!

 

This night, Maryam and Havard spent several hours awake on the mismatched pews and chairs or the chapel. the French woman could see the man was troubled, despite the emotionless mask that was his face. His lips moved with the Chant and yet no sound left his lips. Her hand wanted to settle on his shoulder and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She respected the man too much to do as she wished. She regretted mocking her mother’s beliefs out of anger and spite. She would not do anything her friend did not want…

 

So here they stayed in companionable silence until the clocks struck what passed for midnight in these lands.

 

*

**

*

 

It had been too simple, really. Briala herself had told them she would provide them with an invitation as part of her entourage. However, it seemed that at the first glance she took Maryam’s way she knew. For a week, she had peppered Maryam with questions Havard had answered.

 

The atmosphere in the rooms Briala was given in the Palace was far too stifling. She had also felt it on their way there.

 

The first day of the Ball was for introductions and Maryam was introduced along Havard to many nobles as Mara, a convert Andrastian from Tevinter who had been denied proper sisterhood in the One True Faith. Mara stayed appropriately mute and demure and tried to listen.

 

It didn’t help that her expanding vocabulary did not suffice to cover peace talks, politics and even some parts of their inane prattle. She didn’t talk, however it was more because she didn’t understand anything useful than because of any effort from her part.

 

From afar, Maryam managed to see the Seeress. She was wearing a mask and always accompanied by one member of the Inquisition of the other.

 

She gasped each time she caught a glimpse of one or the tall Qunari woman in a gorgeous dress made of silks in yellows and blues that made Maryam think of the sunrise she’d seen in her holidays in the Algerian countryside, where the colours were not hidden by the perpetual Francilian smog.

 

However, Maryam thought of one last thing they had not thought out:

 

_Who was she supposed to approach first?_

 

Maryam thought of the Inquisitor. She was probably in the middle of her investigation. This was the Halamshiral ball and Orlesians had skeletons in closets she absolutely had to address and now.

 

The Seeress was in a dress black as night that drew her eye. However, she was never alone and always put in some spotlight or another, either with a member of the Inquisition or some noble, meaning that Maryam couldn’t even talk to her without breaking cover in the middle of a freaking ballroom…

 

Without even mentioning that an old slave who had been on cleaning duty had no business knowing Qunlat. The title Lady Gwendolyn Murray of Boston had been introduced with clearly marked her as an American. Maryam knew people who grew up with English as a first language sometimes don’t bother to learn another one, and there were only very slim chances of having an actual conversation in a language nobody in this room spoke, even if Maryam actually managed to remember one that was not necessary for her job or she spoke at home.

 

Maryam let old childhood memories about an uncle’s home being in The King’s Street turn in her head and allowed herself a giggle as she watched the Seeress twirl on the dancefloor with a tall man wearing the black the Inquisition wore and yet did not look like anyone Maryam knew from the game.

 

“Does laughter break your vow of silence, Sister Mara?” a familiar voice asked behind her.

 

The French woman turned to stone. Her lungs emptied of air as she turned around.

 

Behind her was an elf in servant’s livery holding a platter. He gave her a flute of some cocktail or another. It looked like a pink tinged mousseux of a kind and to the taste, it reminded her of rosé champagne. It was delicious. She felt very self conscious all of a sudden, her hand going to her black and red bangs above her forehead to put them away from her face and back into the hat. She thought of her overly large nose she hated. Maryam couldn’t take her eyes from the servant.

 

That’s when he left with no other word that Maryam felt dumb. She had simply ogled and stayed silent instead of whispering. Sure no noble would have noticed her speaking with an elven servant? That kind of people was blind and deaf when their hired help were suddenly expressing themselves.

 

But instead, she had stayed dumbly staring at the elven man, his shaved head, the cleft of his chin, his voice… everything that made him Solas.

 

She managed not to yell “wait” as she momentarily forgot where she was and who she was supposed to be and started to follow him through the crowd and to the servant’s quarters.

 

However, the man had long disappeared and Maryam didn’t dare speak up and ask around if anyone had seen _the bloody Dread Wolf_.

 

Of course she would blow her chances, she thought as she sulked for the remainder of the ball. The only other Inquisition member who stayed alone in the ballroom was Leliana and Maryam didn’t have quite the courage to approach her speaking “Tevene” or “Qunlat”. She didn’t know if she was hardened Leliana or the soft one and thus risked a knife to the ribs by even daring looking at her sideways.

 

When she went to bed that night, exhausted after hearing Havard’s debriefing of his own lobbying actions tonight, she fell asleep almost immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter because I was late and I'm the stupid girl who posts chapter 3 before chapter 2.  
> Internet cookies to whoever, by the end of the story, gives me a list of all the references in the chapter titles.
> 
> I started writing the two other stories in the series and they're eating my soul. I promise you won't be disappointed. Thankfully, one of them is rather short since it joins this one halfway, but the other is longer and harder. Mostly because it includes a trans character's development. So here I am, little cis me, humbly requesting feedback on my trans character. If you are a transman or a non binary person who often prefers to pass as male, please contact me and I'll give you access to the document for proper review.


	5. Super Green

Of course, Maryam knew this ball was dangerous. She knew murderers and assassins were prowling, agents of Orlais warring nobles, agents of Corypheus and his Venatori, Gaspard himself was a threat. What would he do if he had her? Would he try to use her knowledge to make the wind blow in his own sails ? Who was the Inquisition even supporting for the Orlesian throne? Celene? Gaspard? A triumvirate with reconciled lovers?

This was another night trailing Havard, subtly showing off his devotion, his knowledge of the Chant. This time Maryam even accompanied him in the droning of the verses. She felt like the handler of a bear trained to do backflips in a freak show. Or at least, that’s what the masked Orlesians seemed to think of the unlikely duo. 

She briefly saw the Seeress wearing a pair of shoes that might as well have been designed by Louboutin. Did she ask for them to be custom made? Did she own a thousand pair of heels at home including one or several models from the famous French designer? Or did she simply like the effect the red sole had combined with the black leather? She could even be a poor girl who liked haute couture and decided to reproduce her favourite designer shoes from her position of power in this fantasy world…

Watching the dance did not reveal any of the other Inquisition members. However, Maryam did spy the Inquisitor going to the servants quarters.

She wondered if she should follow and decided not to. Anywhere Adaar went would be dangerous, full of blood sprays, deadly spells and swords clashing. Though Maryam was curious about magic, she couldn’t afford to distract the Inquisitor. Or worse: die herself because she’d taken a stray arrow someplace more lethal than the knee. 

So Maryam followed Havard until they tried to enter the garden they had not toured the night before. Maryam caught a glimpse of Dorian and carefully decided to step around Havard and position herself behind the tall priest so the Altus wouldn’t see her. She would be too tempted to spout something in French ( _à tout hasard_ : the rap song Fatima and her had composed and intended jokingly to sing until the entire world joined their chorus about the man's glorious buttocks and divine mustache, supplanting the Chant and pissing Brother Sebastian off.)

And then, there were screams.

They made Maryam freeze up like a deer in the headlights. Havard had to bodily remove her from the garden, turned battlefield, his gloves reassuring her and helping her relax. She was safe back on the dancefloor among frightened nobility. The Empress was farther away from them, her guards forming a literal palissade made of steel.

This time around, she understood more words. Mostly because names were involved.

Gwendolyn Murray seemed to have been targeted in an attack and Commander Cullen had fought like a lion to defend her along with the Champion of Kirkwall.

So this was it, Maryam idly thought. The Champion was alive, so the Warden must have died. The Seeress couldn’t even prevent that. She wanted to sneer, but simply hoped the Warden had not been Alistair or Loghain. It was selfish and cruel to wish Stroud was the one to sacrifice himself. Here, he was a human being, not a bunch of pixels. 

An afterthought chilled the French woman: the Seeress had been attacked. Could she be a target too tonight? 

Whispers and talks around her of an assembly of sorts excitedly made their way from man to woman, even to servants. Nobles, she guessed from the Council of Heralds, and Grand Duke Gaspard stepped forward with their pompous air of importance and outrage. They were let through the crowd and the line of guards circling The Empress. The men and women also stepped aside to let the Inquisition’s delegation and what looked like a man sized doll that had been broken in two halves like a chicken. 

There was vomit in her mouth when she and, naturally, the rest of the ball witnessed the fury that was the Inquisitor yell about ** _Heralds of Andraste_ **. She still couldn’t understand everything, especially since Adaar was speaking quite fast under the effects of a terrible rage so strong that she visibly glowed. The guards facing the curious crowd, impeding the sound, but there was no mistaking the gasps and the light that came when Dorian poured magic into the human corpse. The torn and patched up thing, the very dead thing,  was floating next to him like a broken doll and she could see it above the smallest of the guards. Maryam distinctly heard his answers, especially the “American” part, the familiar word, English word, making her gasp and jump. Havard tightened his hold on her shoulder. 

It didn’t help her contain her cry of shock when the Inquisitor’s hand started to shine and glow.  

Maryam closed her eyes and ground her teeth upon hearing the crunch of bones and the twisted hiss of the rift opening and closing. However, Havard was holding her in place still and so did the crowd around them, all gathered to see the events unfold like a fucking play. 

Then Gwendolyn Murray spoke. 

Maryam had not realised how pretty she looked and she felt a great animosity against the woman in the red slitted dress hugging her forms adorned with lace finer than Calais’. She spoke in Common, with words the French woman knew and in the slow deliberate manner of someone not speaking in her mother’s tongue.

_I have reason to believe I was selected by our Lady Andraste to be saved from the sudden onset of war that marked the end of my world..._

Maryam was still in Havard’s arms, but she couldn’t stay there. She had to run, she had to flee. Havard finally let her go, probably scared he would hurt her or anyone else in the crowd.

She found herself naturally in the servants quarters where she ran into an elf with yellow vallaslin and a wicked knife. Next, she saw stars as she was bashed behind her ear with what was probably a fist.

“This one was running.” she heard.

“She’ll need interrogating. If she’s with Gaspard and we somehow missed her…” a male voice started.

Maryam didn’t have enough knowledge of Common to understand the second part of the sentence.

“## _Mom… I want home_ ##...” she mumbled, disoriented, before the world turned black. 

*

**

*

Maryam woke up in what looked like stables. The elf that had woken her bore a striking resemblance to Théa, albeit with a stronger jaw and a smaller chest. She beckoned her to follow, adding the word “discreetly” to her signing. 

Maryam followed, even though she had a hard time walking around silently. Thankfully, if she had any concerns, every wall here was white and her Chantry frock blended in well. 

She led her back into Briala’s quarters and Maryam numbly learned that her sleeping body had been carried around several times during the night by her agents after a small skirmish with the Inquisition soldiers who had caught her.

“With the assassination attempt on the Seeress… or the Herald, whatever” Briala said. “We cannot afford to have anyone in my care arrested, they’d probably be executed on the spot like Gaspard was yesterday.”

Maryam was numb to this news, however. Briala did not seem to care about Maryam’s own origins and she didn’t do anything to correct her views. She was taken to Havard in the chapel near the Alienage to check for any other injuries and get proper rest.

The man was as stoic and taciturn as ever, if not more, as he slowly checked Maryam’s head for signs of concussion. 

“I am sorry for your home.” He suddenly said as he finished and Maryam’s head felt lighter.

For some reason, his words had not the effect she would have expected on her. She should have melted into a puddle of tears or burst into an explosive rage…  Instead she felt empty. She still remembered nothing of how she had come to be in Thedas after all!

“I… she lives in Boston. I live near Paris. She probably has different news sources. Americans are all about war and…”

She stopped her rambling there, her throat closing onto itself like a serpent coiling, ready to strike.

“And… Her news might have been exaggerated. That’s right. She probably watches Fox News.” She added, trying to laugh with someone who could not understand her joke. 

“Maryam, my friend.” Havard whispered.

His red eyes were glistening with an emotion she did not recognise.

“We found the bag you asked for when you arrived.” He told her. “We found it on your second day at Our Lady of the Golden Shore, actually…”

Maryam’s mouth grew even drier, her tongue stuck to her palate as if she was trying to swallow it. 

“Give it to me.” she snapped, despite herself.

Havard exited the room but came back rather quickly with the familiar bag in his hands.

“Théa thought it best to wait until you met with the Seeress to be sure we were giving it to the right person.” He said, sounding apologetic and presenting her with her belongings. 

Maryam wanted to take her handbag and hug it like a lifesaver. However, she couldn’t. 

Because it was covered in blood.

It shouldn't be covered in blood. She was an engineer living in the Paris outskirts near Disneyland. She wasn’t supposed to get blood anywhere but in her fucking underwear unless she wasn’t careful with her cup. 

It didn’t make any sense.

The blood seemed to be on the side that was in contact with her ribs. When she finally gathered the courage to touch it, she saw three holes in the drawing of the Dread Wolf, matching the ones in her Epica shirt, her N7 jacket… and her ribs.

“Was… was there anything in my wounds, in my ribs, when you healed them?”

“Three pieces of metal. They went deep, as if someone had nailed them with incredible force into you.”

Maryam’s throat wouldn't uncoil itself and let her breathe.

She had been shot. She was sure of it now.

How could she have been shot in _Bussy Saint Fucking Georges_? That's the last place she remembered being. Waking up to go to work... Wondering about what she'd do this week-end for her birthday...

She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. This was France, not Baghdad. Even after last January, especially after last January, weapons were made hard to stumble upon, one could not enter a _Auchan_ and find anything more dangerous than detergent, knives and Nerf guns. Unless a whole ham was used as a bludgeon to attack people walking out of the mosque, of course. Something that happened to Fatima one day during her time off when she was posted in Alsace. Something they found hilarious, despite the broken rib. 

Thoughts of Fatima finally broke the dam holding her tears back. 

She frantically searched the bag only to find two creased editions of the free subway newspaper. One was drenched in her blood and she recognised it as the issue from Friday she picked on her way to work. The other was Saturday's and it had been protected by the other, only getting wet on the sides of the pages, making it difficult to open.

The first page made her heart stop beating for a second. There was only a big picture, not even anything on the side columns like they usually did. Only one big picture of a huge crater from quite a high altitude.

“ **FIN DE PARTIE** ” The title said in huge white letters against the black depth of the crater. For some reason, Maryam made an effort to turn the sticky page. There was a very detailed map of the areas hit, one of them Boston, along with a calculation of the bomb’s yield in kilotons using the size of the crater as a base. Another map detailed the fallout and the time it’d take for it to cross the Atlantic Ocean and reach European shores. Numbers lined the rest of the page. Initial casualty report, casualty report at seven in the morning, Paris time, estimated casualty report. Interviews of French officials and American officials all over the world had been given to both the AFP and Reuters along with another news agency from North America Maryam didn’t know. 

Her head was spinning. She felt like she was swimming in goo, reading news of world destruction. There were a list of culprits, of course everybody thought of Iran, of North Korea, even of Russia, which was the most plausible according to the journalist she was reading. 

If she thought things were normal on her side of the Pond, the next pages revealed 150 casualties had met their end in a gun massacre by religious extremists believed to be tied to the one group from the Middle East giving trouble to Syria and Iraq. She almost puked on the spot, reading how the group had started in Bastille and made their way up to République as if they had simply been Friday night revelers, shooting indiscriminately in bars and shops instead of singing and riding Vélibs with one more glass of wine in them than they should. They hadn’t been stopped until they entered a concert hall where an American rock band had been playing. She recognised the name. She actually knew their songs and their names. She wanted to wash the taste of blood from her tongue. 

Shooting partying people in the back as they watched the show. Shooting people chilling having a beer or a glass of wine on a terrace... Bombing the East Coast with nuclear devices.

She folded the paper neatly and put it on the cot before she grabbed the chamber pot and puked.

She thought Havard was holding her hair. It must have been him, only he had hands as big as these.

She fell asleep for a while.

*

**

*

When she woke up it was dark. A quick tour of the chapel confirmed her it was way past midnight. She found Havard in his own cot, sleeping soundly. She stumbled back into the tiny cell and decided to go through the contents of her bag to check for anything useful.

There was burger bread in its plastic bag looking like a balloon. She put it aside, thinking of getting rid of it, maybe by tossing it in a fire. She thought she could keep the smoked turkey and coppa, before noticing that the turkey had been contaminated. A Piccadilly sauce pot had broken and the glass had ripped a hole in the plastic wrapping. 

She wondered where the steaks were, since she had smoked turkey and coppa, she must indeed have been outside to buy the necessary ingredients for homemade burgers, both in their _allowed_  and _forbidden_  forms. It also meant that Fatima was with her, because, had she been alone, she would only have gotten coppa...

Careful not to nick her fingers on the broken glass (she winced, remembering the price of the precious imported sauce, not the cheap throat burning stuff, thank you), she removed every item one after the other. 

There were pens, her wallet with all her papers in it, not that they would hold value in Thedas, her cup which had not been touched by anything but yellow sauce, small mercies. And when she finally retrieved her smartphone, she audibly whimpered.

The glass of her Galaxy Note 4’s screen was broken in two places, where the whole thing had been bent like a an accordion. 

She thought of all her pictures of her family inside, of all the messages on her voicemail, the stupid emails from her LoL team on her twenty fifth birthday when they realised she was a girl and wanted to surprise her. She thought of the angry phone calls from her mother when they started falling apart, when Mohammed left after his wedding. Mohammed’s emails from an ip she tracked somewhere in Turkey. 

And now, she had no way of contacting them, of knowing if they were dead in this war that was starting all over the world. Had Fatima been called back from her leave, being drafted in the conflict against her little brother? Had she been called to spy because of her religion? Had they dismissed her because of it or Mohammed? Was it even them? Or was it indeed a real international power rather than the teen puppets with the rifles manipulated by angry old men? 

Maryam’s brains couldn’t stop processing everything, anything. Usually, she would drown the noise in a video game, a solo one, so she wouldn't be confronted with plebeian stupidity, but she was alone in a religious building in a fantastic world that should by no means ever exist.

Fatima was a soldier. If Andraste had to pick someone, why couldn’t she pick her? Because Fatima could fight, she could kill, she had killed during the Centrafrica campaign the year before. She could defend herself and learn to use the medieval weapons here. She had played the game even before Maryam, fuck it, she had finished Trespasser seven times despite being a member of the French military forces with little free time! Read all the novels at least twice... Maryam hadn’t even gone quite farther than the first eluvian, because she had wanted to climb the League of Legends ladder before the end of the season at the time. 

She was was an engineer specialised in urban planning, power grids, plants conception. She had no knowledge of fighting and defending herself aside from elbow to stomach, kick to groin and run. And even if she had been won the department’s basket ball competition at school, had been in the hip-hop dance club of her city with her brother, she hadn’t had truly done any kind of exercise in a really long time.

Maryam was scared, lonely, thinking of a dead world. One in which no new Pokemon game would be released, one where J.K. Rowling would never sass stupid people on Twitter again. One where Christophe Lambert would not laugh any more unless a survivor kept a copy of the “ _Boite à Rire_ ” web app. If he could even find a computer to run it...

Where her mother was probably dead thinking her younger children hated her. 

Humming songs of her childhood to herself, she cried herself to a fitful sleep inhabited by the ghosts of her broken family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christian Louboutin (French: [kʁis.tjɑ̃ lu.bu.tɛ̃]; born 7 January 1963) is a French luxury footwear and fashion designer whose footwear has incorporated shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature. (Wikipedia)
> 
> So imagine my surprise upon reading the original Keep to the Stars ball. Mary told me in the comments this was purely accidental, but every French person knows of Louboutin and his red soles these days and I could not not use it to make Maryam misinterpret Gwen's place and intentions. Since, you know, a pair of these, new and off the creator's website cost between 500€ and 2k (the strassy ones)...
> 
> So this was the fun fact to make amends for the very depressing end of chapter.
> 
> Again, thank you Eisen for teaching me new words.   
> And thank you Mary ! =)


	6. Bad Wolf

On the fourth day of the Halamshiral Peace Talks (if they still could even be called such), Maryam asked Havard if she could simply stay in what passed as a lobby, near the fountain. It took a long discussion and the assurance that she understood both her place as a silent nun, a Tevinter ex-slave and a “speaker” of the Common tongue. 

 

Truth was, she was sick of this ball, she was sick of being here. She had spent three months in Thedas now, and she had simply been carried to and fro, not understanding a thing, being played and used. She also learned only now, from second hand accounts, that her world, her life, her sister, her mother, and yes, even her brother, were probably dead. Thus, she only heard the news from revelers and only caught a glimpse of the star couple leaving hurriedly. 

 

A bitter taste went up from Maryam’s stomach to the back of her mouth. That American…  _ whore _  she thought, bringing out the Arabic word, as if it excused her thoughts. Anger was suddenly welling at the bottom of the stomach. Did she play nurse to get him? Did she dangle her womanly curves to a man who had little to no relationships with anything else but his work and duty to make him fall for her pretty ass? 

 

What right did she have to…

 

Maryam deflated instantly. 

 

What right did she have  _ to build a life with whoever she wanted _ when the only thing that was left of Earth was  _ rotten meat, rotten bread and a broken phone? _

 

Maryam tried to put her anger back into her special bottle of management, but it was hard because every time she thought of Gwendolyn Murray and Cullen Rutherford, she thought of her own pathetic little life, how the only love interest in Dragon Age she had ever truly appreciated was someone who would not even give her a second glance, because if there was something Maryam knew, it’s that Love and Sex were driven by preferences and preferences were -- _ cunts _ \--. 

 

She sulked the whole evening, not caring who saw her until she bumped into him. 

 

Again, the world seemed to stop when this particular man decided to show his face. It was as if he was casting a spell on her that made rendered her speechless… And breathless too. 

 

Now she tried to school herself, to take him, her fantasy, her wet dream, entirely in. 

 

He was as tall as her, as was expected, since she was a pretty tall woman and he was an elven man. Her gaze caressed his ears, his jaw and soon, it was so much for her that she whispered to herself.

 

“Y _ou’re even more handsome in reality..._ ”

 

At these words, spoken in her mother's tongue, he lifted an eyebrow and smirked. 

 

“ _So speaking is indeed allowed, Sister Mara._ ”” he whispered back, using words she knew intimately.

 

Maryam gasped and looked around her to check if there had been any other witness, but it seemed like the ball had been deserted. She noticed the small green light on the horizon, the sign of the upcoming dawn. Had she truly spent her night brooding at an Orlesian masquerade? 

 

Not knowing if a spy might have been around, she chose revert back to her initial cover.

 

“ Forgive me, Most High, I should sing Your Name to the heights of heaven, But I know it not, and must be silent. ” she recited in Common. 

 

What he did then made Maryam’s heart beat so fast she was afraid it would burst from her chest and take flight. The man took her hand softly and held it to softly kiss the back of it, bowing like a true gentleman. 

 

“ _My name is Solas._ ” he said, sounding playful. “ _However, there is no need to sing it_  **to the heights of heaven...**”

 

Maryam thought of a few Solas porn ficlets she had read (and written) on the kink meme and could think of a dozen ways she could be chanting his name like one would the Maker’s. Realising where her thoughts were going, she quickly withdrew her hand from Solas’. 

 

“ _Where did a human learn to speak Elvhen as you do?_ ” he asked, suddenly all business now. 

 

Maryam hesitated. She should find Havard. She didn’t know if she was safe. Was Solas even considering helping her?

 

“ A learned child is a blessing upon his parents and onto the Maker. ” she recited. After all, half elven children were quite numerous, even if they looked human. However, her pronunciation was still wonky with the word “learn”. She rarely managed to say it well, the amount of vowels in it always dueling her clumsy tongue to pass through her lips. She even winced at her own blunder. Havard also told her that native Tevinter never blundered on this word, even former slaves. 

 

“ _You are not from around here, are you?_ ” Solas mused. 

 

Of course the -- _ fucking _ \-- Dread Wolf would catch her scent. Maryam was panicked. What was she supposed to do? What would he do? She was angry at herself now and she thought about running or staying silent. She chose the latter. 

 

Solas was one of the most clever people on this planet, world, plane or whatever. He also had an agenda. She didn’t know what he was in for, aside from killing Corypheus and getting his orb back. She wished she had finished Trespasser. However, the day Maryam had started to play, Fatima had barged into her room, saying something about being on leave and having planned an evening at their favourite  _ chicha _ bar in Paris with friends (meaning boys). Maryam had no other choice but to follow. Time spent with Fatima was precious.

 

Maryam sighed. She should find Havard or have any servant point her to Briala’s quarters. 

Or maybe…

 

Whenever she had heard Elvhen in the game, it had been this gibberish that sounded like Tolkien’s Sindarin. What if she spoke those words? Would they come out in Arabic? They hadn’t sounded Arabic at all at the time. She toyed with the words in her head. 

 

“ _I know not how I have come to this place of living dreams._ ” she chanced, feeling the words strangely rolling off her tongue… Just like when she spoke the name of this city. Like  _ Halamshiral _ .

 

It was like reading the Koran out loud. The purest form of Arabic from the time the Prophet lived and was revealed God’s Will. She always liked this tongue better, with its euphemisms and complex poetic sentences. She used to read pre-Islamic poetry in her teenage years, it was how her rebel streak started, actually. Her parents hadn’t really approved, but her father had encouraged her because he thought knowing Classical Arabic was a useful tool for the believer: the Holy Koran was dictated in this ancient tongue and he was an imam who thought women intelligent creatures who deserved to know their faith from inside out... Mostly so they could teach their own children, but still... 

 

Now an adult, she blessed her teenage fancy, because Solas’ eyes were glued hers. Piercing, he bore into her brains. If she hadn’t seen a Qunari and appropriately clothed elves, she’d have checked him for a wand, because this felt exactly how she thought Harry Potter’s Legilimency would feel like: her head was an onion and each layer was riffled through, sometimes going backwards, sometimes peeling deep.

 

She doubted he was actually reading her mind, but she had a hard time registering that. 

 

“ _Will you be at the Ball tomorrow night?_ ” Solas asked. He looked pensive, as if plans were fusing between his two elegantly pointed ears, the edge of it not as rough as Thea's, but a fascinating pattern that drew her eyes. 

 

Maryam willed herself to tear her eyes from him. She would not give into games or follow anyone’s agenda unknowingly and she knew this man had one.

 

“ _I will not speak any more word. Neither will you. Only The Creator knows if we’ll meet again._ ” she told him, trying to sound like she didn’t care, like she was simply rejecting an unwanted suitor, even if he had not truly hit on, her aside from as simple and chaste -- _ baisemain _ \--. 

 

She rose from her seat and walked away, trying to make her heart beat slower against the sore skin of her ribs. She wandered for a while until she found Havard, looking like a stormy cloud. 

 

“I have been looking for you for hours!” he exclaimed. 

“But just, I was…”

“No, not here. Let’s go.” he interrupted her, curtly. 

 

Maryam had to will her eyes to stay on her feet. Otherwise, she would look back and try to catch a last glimpse of him and she couldn’t have that. 

 

*

**

*

  
  


Havard had reason to suspect that Briala knew and intended to use Maryam’s knowledge of future events too. The news made the French woman sigh. It seemed she’d never meet anyone in Thedas who was not hell bent on world domination. 

 

“What do we do? Do we still go back, knowing she’ll like to cash out a favor later?” Maryam asked in English. Qunlat. Whatever.

 

She started to know her friend enough to see when he felt at odds, defeated. 

 

“What do you want to do?” Havard asked in turn, his red eyes looking at the wall behind her, rather than the floor. 

 

Maryam was shocked by the question. From the very moment she landed on this beach in Thedas, people had taken decisions for her, strung her along, plotted her murder, but this was the very first time she was asked what she wanted to do. 

 

What did she want to do?

 

“I… If I had known, if I had control I… I would have wanted to come to Thedas to become a researcher. Know more about this world. Now I… I’m nothing. I can’t even write or speak the language better than a six years old.” she drawled. “So no, I don’t know what to do.”

“I am sorry I brought you here…” he started, his tone full of anger, probably at himself.

 

“Given the alternative, I’m glad you tried to give me a chance.” Maryam assured him. 

 

Havard turned around. 

 

“I think you shouldn’t come to the ball tonight or tomorrow.” he explained. “Unless, you have a plan to try and join the Inquisition. I was with them for a while. I am certain they will accept you… I could write to Mother Gisele…”

 

“No.” Maryam interrupted. “I… Might have spoken my mother’s tongue with one of their elven agents… I think he… And the woman who almost caught me the day the Seer was attacked, I think they don’t understand. I...”

 

And now, for some reason, Maryam didn’t know how to  _ En-gu-ri-shu _ anymore. She stopped there, unable to explain that she didn’t have any clue about what she was supposed to do with her sorry ass. 

 

“I will come with you to the ball. Early and we will leave. Early.” Maryam told him. “If I can’t manage to get the Seeress to hear my tale… I will leave Halamshiral.”

 

To go where, she knew not yet and she didn’t want to think about it. Havard nodded and they prepared for the ball, donning freshly laundered robes. This time, Théa would be accompanying them, as she had finally gotten free of Coppélia’s clutches and arrived at the palace. However, being the person who had gotten their invitation to the ball from Briala, Maryam had started to nurture doubts about her. 

 

It wasn’t easy to realise that you were slowly sliding down the slippery slope toward the cesspit of worry and anxiety that was paranoïa. At the ball, Maryam did not speak as usual, but there were so many people there and none of them was the Seeress. 

 

When she heard from the rumour mill that she had stayed at Gaspard De Chaslons’ manse to tend to Inquisition forces who had been wounded in an attack by the remaining forces of the Grand Duke’s, Maryam’s heart sunk and heavily dropped to the bottom of her stomach like a rusty anchor in the deep, making her want to let out a pathetic wail. She couldn’t be that unlucky, certainly. 

 

A commotion from the servants quarters and a warning from Théa made the trio move to a parlor. Maryam’s blood froze when she realised that something had changed since the last time she had visited this part of the palace. 

 

There was a piano in the middle of the room, on a short dais. Maryam’s ribs itched, so did her fingers. 

 

In a dismal suburb, music class was usually a fun time for children. In the small  _ \--collège-- _ of Lagny, the music room had tables in a half circle facing an old grand piano, a Steinway in bad disrepair that had been donated by a rich entrepreneur a very long time ago. Back when Maryam and her siblings attended, the room was in free access, making it a great sport for children to test their ears and fingers on the instrument, clumsily recreating fashionable tunes from Destiny’s Child, Sniper, Iam, Wu Tang Clan, Wallen, NTM, Fonky Family... And of course, a small rebel band of rock lovers would sneak at less popular hours to try their hand at Evanescence, Kyo or Lofofora, Maryam’s very first rock bands. They had fancied founding one with her friends back then. She recited their names in her head... 

 

Those names… Names she hadn’t heard in years. Names of people she had left behind sometimes after -- _ collège _ \--, sometimes after -- _ lycée _ \--. One of them did start a Black Metal band when he was in engineering school with her, making her promise she’d learn to play the bass, but he dropped out when his mother had a stroke and he decided to take care of her full time. Now these people were most likely dead. And she was here, alive, doing nothing. She didn’t even learn to play. 

 

She didn’t know what she was doing really, parting the crowd as she did, her task made easier by her very religious frock. Some people must be commenting on her unusual hair tied in a bun beneath her small black hat, but her dyed red bangs still visible from beneath it. 

 

The piano was in great condition. She was quite surprised to see one here. She didn’t even know they had pianos in medieval times. She had never bothered to learn the history of the instrument, but she’d have guessed it to be a seventeenth century thing. She poked at a key, trying to recognise a note, but the closest thing to music she knew to play was beatbox. 

 

Fatima did persevere, teaching herself some tunes on an electric keyboard, usually billboard hits. Sometimes, Maryam would come up with a beat and Mohammed with some verse to spit hot on the bars. They’d end up shouting gibberish and Father would start to yell…

 

Maryam’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized the  _\--La--_ upon hitting the right key.  _ Here, she could do this _ . 

 

Of course it was hard to keep the rhythm and type the keys at the same time. She certainly hadn’t found herself able to play like Beethoven during her mysterious travel to Thedas. She was as clumsy as she was in sixth grade. Soon, she was making -- _ yoghurt _ \-- of the Créole dirty lyrics of Saian Supa Crew’s  _ Angela _ , a song every parent dreaded to hear their kids sing whenever they came back home. MC Solaar’s  _ Mach 6  _ and  _ Cinquième As _ was also in it. When her fingers couldn’t do it anymore, she switched to other songs of her childhood, from Marilyn Manson to Pink, without forgetting Nuttea, because “ _ let’s keep slaughtering Créole _ ”, until she found herself into the cheesiest territory: Matt Houston territory. (-- _ De la East à la Westcoast, yo nigga!-- _ )

 

Her fingers had long left the keys, she was beatboxing alone with her eyes closed, simply drumming, hi-hatting, scratching her way through French and US R&B by the power of her throat alone.  

 

She had stopped since Mohammed and his wife left for who knew where. It was never the same, so she stopped listening to the genre that saw her grow up, just because _it might be the problem_. It was so childish and even slightly racist to think so, she realised. Shutting herself from hip-hop was like imposing herself a punishment when she was not the one who had done anything wrong (at first). Mohammed didn’t need Akhenaton or Method Man to chose a life of violence against individual freedom, against the idea that women can think and chose for themselves, something their father had always preached and practiced in his own home. Suledin may have not approved of Maryam’s clothes, of the music she listened to during her teens, but her father had been someone who was always proud of her for discovering herself just like he was proud of Fatima for embracing Islam and its traditions, making them hers.

 

Maryam had loved Suledin Al Ghilani with all her heart. She sighed, remembering the old man fondly as she closed back the lid on the keys. She hoped this piano had someone to do it justice. 

 

She still felt empty, but less confusingly so. She felt better. Or rather, less bad, she guessed. She realised she shouldn’t stay near the piano. There was a note she couldn’t read on it. The artist was probably away, gone to have some drink before starting to play again. 

 

She knew she shouldn’t be alone either, but she couldn’t help but stiffen when Havard and Théa flanked her when they exited the parlor together. It seemed that just like on Earth, beatboxing was not as interesting as proper piano play, because once she had ceased her keys smashing, they had stopped paying attention to her.  

 

Or maybe beatboxing was something servants did, who knew.

 

Maryam finally coming back into the world of the living, she realised that the ballroom had gone utterly silent. Glancing at the dance floor, the Empress above it and Adaar and Grand Duchess Florianne below made her guess why: there could only be one Belle of the Ball. 

 

The numbness of her mind and body were only beginning to resorb and Théa and Havard were witnessing with her the horror of Florianne’s horrific execution, the same way her brother went, so it was no surprise really that a hand managed to sneak past her neck onto her mouth with a sweet smelling handkerchief that reminded her of the glue she’d lick off her fingers in kindergarten. 

 

\--  _ Colle Cléopâtre, qui peut te battre ! _ \--, she thought before the world faded to black. 

 

*

**

*

 

Maryam felt like déjà-vu. She was waking up in a cell. This time, not the cozy if a little bare cell of a monk, but the hard, cold and smelly prisoner's cell complete with bars. 

 

She wondered why until she heard a voice saying something along the lines of “ _she’s awake_ ”.

 

Her captors were wearing Orlesian finery. There was a woman and two men speaking in Common and fast with the odd French word in between.

 

“The Grand Duchess is dead, her orders mean _\--shit--_ if we don’t get out of here alive.”

 

“But how long will we stay that way if we don’t bring Him something?...”

 

_ Orders from the Grand Duchess. _

It made Maryam’s lip tremble. When the fuck did she end up in Venatori hands? 

_ A hairbreadth away from Corypheus himself.  _

She dared not move. They knew she was awake already. She was like a stupid cow waiting to be slaughtered, right now. They could still slit her throat and leave, even if they were scared of the big bad Magister-Darkspawn. 

 

Maryam finally lost her very last shit. All ability to breathe was lost. Her throat was unresponsive and her lungs were trying to process more air than she was able. Hyperventilating. 

 

Until she heard the commotion and saw the three jailors draw weapons, the woman a sword, the men, a sort of aura that made Maryam think of the magical version of removing the safety of a gun before cocking it. 

 

The fight was short, but bloody. Someone who seemed to have Templar training neutralised the mages, forcing them to unsheathe last resort daggers. However, it was no use. The Inquisition’s forces by now were probably the best in the world. The gurglings the woman made when she took a dagger to the throat made Maryam her queasy. She winced. Blood drenched the floor. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw so much blood. Probably when she’d been shot  _ but she remembered none of it. _

So it was pretty much the first time Maryam saw blood coming from a true wound that was flowing freely on the ground. 

The inquisition member who had done the deed gave her victim mercy with a strong and swift plunge of a sword to her heart, making Maryam jump on her feet and scream at last, making fear, despair and rage pour from her mouth in the most primal way.

 

“STOP THIS!” the woman yelled. Maryam recognised the elf with the yellow vallaslin who had caught her the last time, when she had fled Gaspard’s execution. 

 

Maryam indeed shut her mouth under the woman’s intimidating gaze. 

 

The Inquisition was raiding the place, it seemed. Was it Florianne’s base of operations in Halamshiral? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. 

 

“You’re like us.” She heard a small raspy voice say in Common.

 

“--Oh non…--” Maryam wailed, recognising it.

 

“But you don’t remember.” Cole whined in turn.

 

“ _Forget me, please forget me, please forget me…_ ” Maryam chanted, reverting to her mother's tongue again, her eyes scrunched closed. She imagined herself to be invisible, to be covered in Death’s cloak...

 

And just like that, Cole had disappeared… And so had all of the Inquisition members scouring the dungeon. Maryam, tired, sunk onto the bars of her cell only to fall with them to the floor in a great symphony of clangs and bangs. Praying she had not been heard, she took the hem of her robes in hand and started to run.

 

She somehow managed not to be noticed. No one was even glancing at her, and if they did, they seemed to be watching someone else, something else. People in the green and brown leathers of the Inquisition were rifling through documents and belongings of the late Grand Duchess and it was only by miracle that they didn’t see the woman dressed as a Chantry sister among them.

 

So Maryam ran, she ran from the manse and into what appeared to be an empty street at the crack of dawn. Even then, bakers were busy and did not notice her. Other workers were starting their day, never seeing her. They didn’t notice a woman in religious garb running as if the _shaytan_  was after her. 

 

She only stopped when she reached a dead end, collapsing in a puddle of muddy stagnant water. Only then did she realise she had crossed the forbidding and forbidden double doors in her flight.

She snorted. What white girl boogeyman was going to visit her? Robbed? All her belongings were in the chapel. Beaten? She was too exhausted to feel anything. Raped? She had long lost her pride and dignity. Death?

 

Death, she’d like that.  _ Welcome it _ , even, she thought, suddenly not so adverse to the idea anymore. 

 

The shadow of a man blocked her the light of the alien moons. She mourned it, her moon and its craters… The soothing light of t _ he pole star  _ under which she first kissed a boy…

 

Nothing came. The shadow of the man she recognized (she’d recognise him anywhere, that damn Egg...) didn’t move and simply stood over her prone body, burning from trespassing the limits to which she pushed it, her lungs ablaze, her ribs on fire, her knees hot coals. 

 

“--  _ What are you waiting for?-- _ ” she asked, almost choking on mud. “ _ \--Do it.-- _ ” she moaned. “ _Please._ ” she begged, too tired to speak English or Common. Her earlier hysteria was turning into pitiful sobs. 

 

He crouched next to her and she started to shake, uncontrollably so. He helped her sit and got her out of the puddle of water and mud and who knew what else. He seemed not to care about her torn and dirty dress as he settled her with her back to one of the shacks and took a hold of her right foot. She had lost a slipper and it was bloody. A tickle was all it took for him to heal the wound. Then, with a handkerchief, cleaned her face. 

 

" _I will not kill you._ ” he said in the tongue that looked like her mother's.

“ _I deserve to die… I should die. If you don’t do it now, I’ll… I’ll get myself killed or… or starve…_ ” Maryam tried to argue. 

“ _Why? You seem a capable woman. You managed to cross the entire city unseen, a great feat. You speak at least three languages and you’re learning a fourth… You’ve survived this far. Why not longer?_ ”

“ _I’m useless…_   _\-- A liability.-- I only bring trouble…_ ” she babbled. Empty excuses. 

“ _Let me prove you otherwise, my friend._ ” Solas told her as he finished cleaning her lips. 

 

Maryam’s heart swelled as he did so. He was right, she truly did not want to die. She was just afraid. Now if only she could learn to not be afraid, to stop being so…

 

“ _ \--Okay-- _ ” Maryam told him. Her voice hoarse and flat, she continued. “ _I’ll… What shall I do? Teacher? How... How can I be of use?_ ”

 

Solas took a hold of her hands and urged her upwards. He legs were just killing her. 

 

“ _Not now, child. For now, you need a night and a day of sleep._ ”

  
As if the world had suddenly settled its weight on her shoulders, Maryam felt the exhaustion soak into her bones and brains and yawned. She didn’t question when Solas knocked on a specific door in a specific pattern. She didn’t register the gasps or the stares, she just let herself fall onto a straw mattress as if she had drunk a cauldronful of the Draught of the Living Death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the languages are going to become as important to the story as in Inglorious Bastards. I hope my formatting isn't too obtuse. I'll appreciate new feedback about it.
> 
> Thanks to Eisen for teaching me new words.  
> Thanks to Mary for letting me ramble about my fic in her comments sections.


	7. Out of Gas

They were chasing her, with their accusatory glares. She knew she was dreaming, though, because she knew they were dead. Fatima and her mother’s _hijabs_ were even artfully sprayed with blood. She would have laughed and grabbed some popcorn if she could flee this corner of her own mind. Whenever she left them, she’d find them in another. When she started to run, she somehow managed to find a measure of peace.

 

The great artificial lake was not as busy as in her memories. The Vaires-Torcy "Island" was always packed whenever they went there for a bit of family fun. She could remember her mother, a t-shirt over her swimsuit, her hair momentarily free from the traditional headscarf to soak the sun in.

  
Maryam had never looked at her mother and been awed. She had always seen a demure woman who had “the chance to marry a godly man”, even as she had pursued long studies (a huge no-no if tradition was to be believed) to get a job as a financial director in the country’s biggest civilian transportation company. They were old when they had Fatima and Maryam had somehow heard her last pregnancy was not easy (were twins ever easy to give birth to?). And tonight, in her dreams, for the first time in her twenty eight years, Maryam started to see the woman in Khadija Al Ghilani.

 

She was watching her children play, Maryam turned around and indeed saw her nine year old self on the shoulders of her twin brother, teaming up to plunge their older, stronger teenage sister into the water.

 

Khadija was watching them intently, her brown eyes shining with a strange emotion Maryam didn’t recognise right away. She looked so young, despite her fifty eight years, the daughter suddenly realised how miraculous her pregnancies were, how beautiful it was that her mother did not die giving birth or didn’t tire raising three children as her twilight years started. Maryam’s heart broke. She had now lost this woman forever. And the last thing she had told her had probably been hurtful, hateful…

 

Shouting from the children suddenly made Maryam turn around. Kid-Fatima, kid-Maryam and kid-Mohammed were splashing someone. She heard young-Khadija laugh lightly. Maryam’s heart squeezed as she looked at the children having fun with a fourth player. Khadija’s hand found its way on her grown up daughter’s shoulder.

 

“It’s alright, _sugar_.” she said, her voice soft. “Go, see your friend.”

 

In the water, circled by the children, the man was standing up, a smile stretching his lips and laughter bubbling in his blue eyes. What was he doing in this dream? He shouldn’t be in there. Definitely not. This kind of dreams were supposed to be Leila’s, not hers. They should happen in a forest, the moss wet under Leila Lavellan’s (her) feet, the mist forming a shroud on the floor and between the trees.

 

Solas’ dreams did not belong in sunny artificial beaches, playing with three children and he would definitely not chuckle along with them, wringing the water from his tunic as he walked out of the lake, his leggings/pants/whatever, clinging to his legs like sin.

 

Maryam turned around and willed the dream away, she wanted to run. However, she knew he was still there. Actually, she could not feel any other presence and his was painful.

 

“ _Maryam?_ ” he asked, his voice soft.

 

“ _What do you want?_ ” she asked.

 

“ _I want many things. You can’t provide any of them._ ” he answered.

 

Maryam’s palms rubbed her eyes. When she opened, she was in her room in the Bussy apartment. A room she had shared with Fatima for a long, long while. Twin beds on each side of the room separated by two desks, one of them with a laptop computer and the other with an antiquity. Their first machine, acquired when Fatima was sixteen. The R&B bands and Rappers posters on Fatima’s side. Maryam’s own wall was more of a melting pot, Destiny’s Child, Evanescence, System of a Down and various movie posters making her crush on Orlando Bloom obvious. The sun outside the window was setting. Her books on the basics of physics and chemistry borrowed in the school library was on her pillow. Oum Kalsoum was playing faintly from her father’s room. She remembered this day.

 

Without a word, Maryam opened the door and rushed to his.

 

Khadija, her hair finally greying, had both her arms on her youngest children shoulders. At sixteen, Mohammed had outgrown Maryam, making it hard for their mother to reach his neck properly, but she held her child close anyway and the young man hadn’t protested like he used to.

 

Fatima was twenty and was wearing her black hijab and jilbab. Her eyes were steely and red around the edges. She had just started boot camp and had been allowed to leave to say her goodbyes.

 

If Mohammed was standing tall, if a little stooped, Maryam at sixteen looked half his size. Her head was on her mother’s stomach and she was sniffing, her eyes clenched shut as if she could deny the inevitable. The CD stopped, the Lady of Egypt went silent as Suledin Al Ghilani drew his last breath on the bed of their home after three years of battle against several diseases caused by a liver cancer.

 

The doctor registered the time of death, young Maryam, wailing, threw herself into the girl’s room where she tore at everything. Her posters, her sister’s, she broke the old monitor of her computer, tossing it against a wall. It didn’t matter that her father was almost seventy years old, an old wizened man who had seen two wars. Maryam had been too hurt. So hurt that she tore the holy book on her pillow apart, shredding each and every page until it was nothing but paste.

 

“You were close to your father.” Solas said.

“Yes.” Maryam answered. “I… This is the day I truly stopped… Believing. Going to the mosque. I wasn’t wearing a hijab or dressed very modestly like my sister did, but I was sort of going through the motions of prayer automatically, every year I’d fast for Ramadan… And this day… God had taken my father from me and I was so pissed.” Maryam said, a humourless laugh on her lips.

“And yet, you are still a woman with principles. Your father doesn’t seem like he raised you badly.” Solas told her. “After all, what is Faith without Conviction?”

 

Maryam sighed.

 

The dream changed again. Fatima was on leave and they were composing the song _à la gloire de Dorian Pavus_. And his glorious butt. It made Solas chuckle.

 

“You understand French?” Maryam asked.

 

“This is your dream and you’ve unknowingly invited me in. You are making it comprehensible for me.”

 

“Like the TARDIS?” she asked.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Solas admitted.

 

Of course.

Maryam was thinking. This was the Fade. It had to be. If she was awake in it, could she shape it to her will? She had conjured the day at the lake and then her father’s last day on Earth. Maybe she could direct it… Conjure something different, a pure creation…

 

When she opened her eyes, she was in front of the TARDIS. She reverently opened the door of the old police box. It was just like the one David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston had filmed in. A long brown and beige scarf was on a seat and the floor was the tempered glass of Amy’s. K-9 was in a corner, seemingly asleep and on a joystick of sorts. On the console was a leather jacket and a cricket bat.

 

“Fantastic.” Solas exclaimed, looking like an excited child.

 

She heard almost nothing of what he said next, she was too busy wandering her own dream, an amalgamation of TARDISes from all the different eras she managed to dive in thanks to the Internet and a dedicated community of fans. She ran through the corridors, visited the swimming pool and what appeared to be the famous wardrobe containing disguises, diving suits, space suits (the one from the Mars episode!), the Sixth doctor patchwork horror, Seventh’s umbrella, the War Doctor’s 17th Century garb, complete with ruffles, dusty and frayed from a life of war and strife. Jon Pertwee’s magician coat, Twelve’s guitar, a collection of fezzes, because fezzes are cool.

 

She took one and put it on her head, feeling something fall from it onto her hair, she slid her hand between the top of her head and the hat, only to find a cool bowtie.

 

She was so excited at the prospect of conjuring dreams so lifelike, so full of wonders that she turned around on her feet in a light spin, chanting: _Destination, Détermination, Déliberation!_

 

And Hogwarts was before her. At night, it was beautiful and it looked exactly how _she_ had imagined it! The lake behind her was black, small lights reflecting on its surface. The First Years were coming. She ran to the great doors and reached the Entrance Hall where older students were chatting on this first day, slowly trickling in the Great Hall for the welcoming feast…

 

Its starry night sky was perfect, the floating candles beautifully lighting the five long tables adorned with a cloth matching the colour of each house and a white one for the teachers.

 

“Having fun?”

 

“This is wonderful...“ Maryam whispered, in awe.

 

“It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live, Maryam.” Solas sternly lectured with a knowing smile.

 

She only laughed. Solas would have been a perfect Albus Dumbledore. She closed her eyes. They were back in her room. The 2015 room that was hers. It had two beds still for when Fatima dropped by, but the posters were gone, the walls back to their original white instead. The desks had been merged into one big battle station. She was proud of it, had saved for months to get it (not hard when one lives with her mom…), two of the latest graphic cards for a tri-monitor setting, an overclocked processor of an older generation (had to save money on something…) which was still pretty powerful, a water cooling system settled under the desk which also cooled her legs and a mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse for precision in League of Legends and Counter Strike.

 

In her room, she felt free, she felt good.

If only now she could hear her mother yell. Or smell her cooking. Hear her play this Oum Kalsoum record she kept to remember her late husband by.

 

“What am I doing?” Maryam asked out loud.

 

“Grieving.” Solas answered. “Something perfectly normal and expected.”

 

“I wish I knew how to move on.” she mumbled, frustrated.

 

“You already did once.”

 

“I was in a world I knew better than this one. I had my family… My friends. A path to follow… I was younger too.”

 

“You can learn. Make friends. Make yourself a path. Twenty-eight is hardly an advanced age...”

 

Maryam snorted. Older people giving advice wasn’t getting any more enjoyable than it had ever been.

 

“And an Orlesian ball is not a place where one usually finds friends…” the elf added.

 

And like her mother, he was right.

The only friend she had was a Qunari and he couldn’t take care of her. He had his own life, his own problems and she definitely wasn’t a religious person so she couldn’t stay with him.

He was also connected to Théa and Coppélia both. The latter clear in her intent to get rid of her, the former linked to someone who might have the same idea if she couldn’t take advantage of her knowledge.

 

“So… Does mister know-it-all have an idea?”

 

“Let me speak to some friends about you… Not the Inquisition.” Solas hastily added after seeing her face. “I don’t know where your distaste of Gwen comes from, but I am not about to introduce you to her if that’s not what you want…”

 

Maryam nodded, inviting him to develop his idea.

 

“I have friends among the Dalish…”

 

“I thought you didn’t like the Dalish?” Maryam countered.

 

“I still am in good terms with the most progressive ones. I have reason to believe they would benefit from your particular knowledge of the elvhen language…” he told her, without missing a beat, despite the fact that she had knowledge of his preferences. 

 

“I…”

 

“You can take words that resemble Elvhen and use them fluently. Only one clan managed this feat and still struggles to keep it alive. I also would like to know if you can read the script or if it’s different from the written form you know.”

 

“You realise I suck at writing Arabic, right?” she said, her eyebrow raised.

 

“But you read it. And if you read, you can write.” Solas countered.

 

And he was right. Again.

 

“How can I trust you?” Maryam asked. “I’ve been here for only a couple of months and people have already been after my knowledge and tried to kill me. I also know who you are and though I haven’t seen it all, I know you have a plan. What if one day you decide I’m a liability?”

 

“Then it’s best I help and befriend you now, to make sure you’re on my side.” he answered.

 

Maryam sat on her bed, silent. He looked like like he was sincere. She wasn’t sure she should trust him, but she wanted to so hard. How could she refuse a man she had so strongly admired from afar? She sighed and said :

 

“You have an accord… _Dread Wolf_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the beginning of a long and strong relationship between Maryam and the Fade.  
> Also the last of Solas for a few chapters. 
> 
> If any of you is interested in Overwatch, maybe you'll be interested in hearing me singing! =) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIGYPO0I4s


	8. Bushwacked

At first, she was accompanied, strangely, by Théa’s sister, Pauline. She never went very far, even to relieve herself, even as she might have wanted privacy to hide the obvious. Havard’s threats might have been scary enough to make ‘not passing’ a less daunting prospect. 

 

When Maryam had woken up on the last day of the Halamshiral ball, she had gone to the Chapel where she saw the Andrastian Qunari pray. He had been relieved to see her. He was the one who called Solas when she had disappeared on them the other night. 

 

Havard had helped her pack her things in a more sturdy bag and helped her burn the remains of her phone and other useless belongings in the outskirts of the city with a more powerful fire than one could find in a chimney. She had been fascinated by his practice of magic. He barely acknowledged the fact on his best days and she hadn’t truly been awake the only day he did so in her presence. It made Maryam wonder if she was herself a mage. But she was in no hurry to discover powers that were still feared, despite the Inquisition’s work.

 

The family she had slept with had provided clothes that were a bit snug around the hips and her breasts, probably men clothes, the only thing that fit her in their home. However, they were warm wool that warded her adequately against the winter chill. She swore to repay or return them the favour one day before Pauline retrieved her and accompanied her to the edge of a forest she called **The Emerald Graves**. Then, a second elven guide introduced himself as Cillian, thanked the city elf and beckoned her to follow, as Pauline turned around, on her way back toward civilization. 

 

After a few days worth of walking, Maryam learned to ignore the blisters and to locate the star used to navigate, their pole star. Cillian also silently pointed trees that would later give edible berries, useful plants, he recognised from their snow covered roots alone, animal tracks, how to make snares and where to set them, to catch white skinned nugs, the only thing that was stupid enough to brave the winter in Thedas. At night, he would not sleep, but sit with his legs crossed like an Indian chief to meditate, his impressively muscled chest and arms bare, making Maryam think of an ascetic monk. She would manage to sleep herself only fitfully. She had never been this cold in her life, despite the clothes donation from the elves, the blankets and cloaks from the Qunari and the hat Théa insisted she kept because it covered her ears. She could hardly see her hands and didn’t want to. She had not been in such a cold place since she was a young girl and France had proper winters. She mourned her tan. She left Earth during late summer, very early autumn. She knew she was going to be white as a sheet before this side of the Thedosian planet circled back to face the sun.

 

When they reached a particular clearing, the man seemed to straighten further his already ramrod straight back before he let out an animal cry, a bear like growl. He was answered by a light trill, similar to a swallow’s. At this signal, Cillian turned to Maryam and looked at her intently, his arm extended toward the other side of the clearing, as if he was gentlemanly holding the door for her at the mall. 

 

Tentatively, on her sore legs, Maryam walked past him and reached the center of the clearing. She turned and looked around. She had marvelled at the forest when she first entered the thick canopy of trees. She had never seen such a big forest, everything was so intense… And the scarcity of men made it teem with the noises of nature, despite the winter chills. That was what she had prefered from her vacations in Algeria, to her parent’s great horror (she had brought many snakes at her aunt’s home and caused quite the commotion before she learned how venomous they could be...). 

 

However, the forest here couldn’t compare. She wondered how it would look like when the sun would finally be back in range to warm up this part of Thedas again. 

 

“Where are we?” she asked.

 

She had learned quickly that Cillian only spoke the basics of her language, despite understanding it almost completely. To make herself useful, she had decided to speak only Arabic in elven presence. 

 

“In a place called the Arbor Wilds.” he answered in the same tongue. The rest, however, was spoken in Common. “ _ My former Keeper has business here. She is the one you will meet. _ ”

 

Maryam’s heart made a few acrobatic twists. She was a bit scared of the Temple’s Guardians, but being so close to another place the Inquisition was going to be heavily involved in was still a very exciting idea, despite the Halamshiral fiasco. 

 

The rustle of leaves tore her out of her reverie. Shadows in the mist were holding bows at the ready, their arrows trained on her already, she knew. 

 

“This place of peace welcomes you.” An old woman’s voice rang. 

 

She was dressed in warm looking robes and several feathers and baubles had been sewn on it to signify her station. Maryam looked at the Keeper directly in her determined brown eyes and bowed to her.

 

“It is an honour to be welcomed among your people, wise elder.” Maryam introduced herself as she would a respected member of the clan. “My name is Maryam, I am daughter to Suledin of clan Ghilani.”

“I have never heard of a clan going by such a name. Where are you from, thin of blood, that an equally halved ghost has sent you to us?” the old woman asked. 

 

Maryam’s brain went into beast mode. The crone had just insulted her, assuming she was a half breed, and Solas, for his estrangement from the Dalish. However, she had not spent her nights on the road idle. 

 

Havard had given her several stacks of paper for her to rewrite the poems she remembered to this day. It was hard, as it had been around ten years since she had last read them. She was a bit ashamed of her clumsy penmanship, of the spelling mistakes that had probably wound up in the end text, but she nonetheless retrieved the precious paper on which she had copied one of the famous poems allowed to stay pinned to the  _ ka’aba _ , the All Evil in Mecca around which all Muslims should one day circle and vilify in pilgrimage. She was quite proud of this little piece of blasphemy. 

 

“I come from a place very far from here, a place where knowledge was not not lost, but rather changed like a stream becomes a river and a river becomes a sea. In this place, your tongue, the tongue my mother with round ears taught me, is called --Arabe-- and we have a code to write it. I have come to offer my knowledge of that code so that my long lost cousins from another world might find themselves stronger from the knowledge.”

 

She presented the rolled up paper like a scroll from the great library of Alexandria, on one knee,  and once it was off her palms, rose back to her feet. 

The Keeper seized Maryam up, her gaze going up and down her silhouette like her grandmother had when she had come back for the holidays after she had her first period. However, a shy teenager she was no more. She was standing with her back straight, looking at the woman in the eye in what she hoped would be interpreted as respect shown by an equal. 

 

A few minutes that seemed to span eons passed. 

 

“What do you want in exchange?” the Keeper said, now thoughtful. 

 

“Food, shelter and education in how to get those without your help so I might not become a burden.” Maryam answered. “I know Dalish clans seldom have their hallas pull banquets alongside the aravels.”

 

She was hesitant when she used the word halla, using the word for camel. For Dalish, she used the same Jedi mind trick than with “Halamshiral”, letting it flow on her tongue. The Keeper, did not seem to mind the younger woman’s speech or her manners. In turn, she didn’t mind that she had brought a dozen snipers with her as a welcoming committee. (ok, she did, but rationalised it. Dalish had to be wary of everyone, especially humans.)

 

“A ghost you have woken, prodigal child. To make sure it doesn’t bring the Dread Wolf to our door, we will welcome you in the clan as a guest. You will have to train and work as would a First while retaining none of the privileges it brings aside from a place to lay beside us and some of our food. Do you agree to those terms?”

“I agree, wise elder and I thank you for being so merciful. You are truly blessed among all women!” Maryam exclaimed, getting sidetracked in her formal addresses, both from elation and relief to learn she wouldn’t be turned into a hedgehog anytime soon. 

 

Though she didn’t expect them to receive the warmest of welcomes from all the others, She had been given a path and she’d managed to walk it alone. She couldn’t even give a single fuck about the rest, after all she’d just been through.

 

*

**

*

  
  


The Dalish camp was fascinating. 

 

The aravels were those long sleek landships with huge pennants made in a deep blue colour with a symbol reminiscent in style of both vallaslin and, surprisingly, traditional henna tattoos, a familiar hand with an eye in the center…

 

“You use the Hand of Fatima to protect yourself?” Maryam asked the Keeper when she noticed the strange heraldry.

 

“The hand of who?”

 

Maryam pointed to the flag atop one of the aravel’s masts and the Keeper smiled. 

 

“It is fortunate that you question what you see.” the Keeper said. “I will let Neria show you around the camp. You may spend the rest of the day to make yourself at home in our clan.”

 

Maryam did not push. It was her first day. 

 

Neria was the Keeper’s First and that’s when Maryam realised this was the clan of the Dragon Age Multiplayer Keeper she loved so much. Seeing her auburn hair and her familiar nose, along with her brown vallaslin was a damn beautiful sight. Maryam almost wanted to hug her, but refrained at the very last time. 

 

She presented herself and Maryam did the same. The clan looked like an established one. The tracks left by the aravels when they wheeled in had long dried and several ephemeral constructions were found in the middle of the circle they formed. She found that almost every aravel was housing a family, except the the Master Crafter’s, the Halla Keeper’s and of course, the Clan’s Keeper. Neria explained those were aravels assigned to anyone taking the duty. This meant that Neria lived in the mobile home with the old Elindra, rather than in the aravel housing her own parents ever since her magical powers bloomed. 

 

“ _ As an apprentice of our Keeper and a honoured guest, you will have the privilege to sleep in the Keeper’s aravel with us. _ ” Neria explained in her lightly accented Common. 

 

She gave her the grand tour, introducing her to everyone, dodging the playing children expertly. Maryam trailed behind her, silent, except when she offered an informal greeting in the tongue they shared. Most of them didn’t seem at all put off by her presence. At worst, they ignored her like one would a stranger in a busy street. However, she received a strangely warm welcome from the Master Crafter Felhamin who shook her hand vigorously until she felt her arm was going to fall off her shoulder. It was refreshing nonetheless. 

 

Everyone spoke Common, their accents odd to her ear, but most were interjecting elven expressions in their speech, an extreme version of her own experiences as a member of a people conquered whose language had been watered down by the French settlers with their -- _ Black Feet _ \--.

 

Then, Neria and her circled back to the Keeper’s aravel where Maryam had left her belongings. Entering the aravel was truly like walking into a wheeled bungalow pretty much shaped like a boat. A boat with a sail with a Hand of Fatima on it. Maryam held back a nervous chuckle when she entered the living quarters of her host. 

 

The inside was not unlike a caravan. There was a small table with two rudimentary doors leading to what she assumed had to be rooms with enough place to stuff a cot and a few clothes. There was however no other kitchen but a potion corner, complete with cauldrons, in the most Harry Potter way possible. 

 

All of it was decorated with various beast skins and trinkets that had some significance in Elvhen and Dalish lore, she was certain. Again, she saw the Hand of Fatima. 

 

Keeper Elindra was sitting at her table where a huge book was opened. She invited the two women ( _ her apprentices _ , Maryam almost gushed) to sit . She could have received her letter of acceptance to Hogwarts and she wouldn’t have been this excited. 

 

“I hope you showed our guest around.” the old woman said out loud, seemingly to no one in particular, as her gaze was deeply entranced by the book, but all of them knew it was addressed to Neria. 

 

“Yes, Keeper.” she answered, her elvhen/arabic slightly accented. 

 

“Good... I will need to talk to Maryam and you must be present for this, my First.”

 

Neria nodded gravely and Maryam’s excitement fell. 

 

“To the most urgent… I am gravely ill, which is why Neria has come back from Skyhold where she worked with the Inquisition. She is to take my place whenever I fall or fail to fulfill my duties.”

 

Maryam’s lips formed an “o” as she took in Keeper Elindra’s words. Had she not said it, she would not have guessed. 

 

“Second… You have come here despite the fact that you are a human and not a mage… And yet I feel something strange around you.” Elindra continued. “So once your morning duties in assisting the clan and myself are over, you will study and practice magic with my First.” 

 

“Hmmm… What?” Maryam breathed, feeling like she was being punched in the gut. 

 

“Which also means that each morning, you will write down everything you have just dreamed in as much details as you can.”

 

Maryam grew a bit scared… Until she realised that the woman was probably a good teacher to have groomed Neria into the capable warrior she was in the game and was certain to  _ be _ in reality. 

 

“ _ \--Okay…-- _ Hmm… I mean, I agree.” Maryam stumbled. 

 

Elindra’s brows furrowed but she swiftly continued. 

 

“And last but not least… You will teach Neria and I the specificities of the script you use to write Elvhen. It is indeed similar to ours, but I think you have words for things that do not exist here and in turn, we have words for things you have never ever heard of…  _ Offworlder _ .”

 

Maryam swallowed a nasty lump in her throat, but it was to be expected so she sucked it up. 

 

“Everything you want.” she stammered, determined. 

 

“If everything goes well, we might be able to bring you in on our expedition to the Temple of Mythal next month…”

 

“What, are you going in there?” Maryam exclaimed, panic bubbling in her chest.

 

Keeper and First exchanged a glance. 

 

“Yes.” Neria said. “Do… Are you a Seeress too?” she asked, looking very nervous suddenly. 

 

Of course she had been with the Inquisition. Maryam tried to swallow through the knot forming in her throat. And here she thought she’d be relatively safe within this group.

 

“I don’t know how much she knows, but she’d know  _ that _ .” she explained. “This temple is soon to be contested. Corypheus will be here.” Maryam told them. “And he’ll want something very valuable in there that the Inquisition must seize to defeat him, and there’s also the Sentinels...” she sighed, thinking out loud despite herself. 

 

If she had been in Gwendolyn’s place, she’d have made a terrible Time Lady. 

 

Elindra and Neria were indeed looking at her as if she was the Buddha Himself. Both awe and horror dawned on their features. 

 

“We should leave.” Neria said.

 

“No.” Elindra grunted just as Maryam said “Yes.”

 

“What?”

 

Elindra rose to her feet.  She hadn’t noticed it before, as she had been standing the whole time, but the woman was indeed sick enough for the motion to take a long time. She didn’t look at all fit for any kind of fight and yet, she looked every inch the warrior as much as a scholar.

 

“Neria, you will send word to the Inquisition of our location and offer our eyes and ears in the area. Do not mention Maryam’s presence, but do talk at length our proficiency with demolitions and trapping efforts.”

 

The woman turned to the offworlder, then.

 

“You… will tell me everything you know of those Sentinels and leave nothing out. If we cannot examine the Temple because of their presence, then I will know as much as possible before leaving this forest or this world altogether.”

 

Maryam sighed. She would have to speak of something at least. Someone as knowledgeable as Elindra will not believe the Eluvian the holiest of holies of a lone temple. 

  
She was stuck. And that sucked major balls.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terribly sorry I couldn't update sooner, but I've found a new temporary job 200km away from home. Between moving to the temporary lodgings and dealing with mixed feelings such as "I can't stand to spend two weeks away from my SO" "but I want this job and I even need it too for both my sanity and my bank account!" it's been hectic. The few moments I was able to publish a chapter was in fact spent in my bed trying to sleep all of this shit off. 
> 
> I'm well right now as I am back home with my man for the week end. I thought this morning that this story has been waiting for too long.
> 
> The writing has stopped too, though for a very different reason. As some of you know, I live in France, have been living there ever since I was born in a little hospital in a big French city. So when someone with a truck decided to ruin Bastille Day for everybody, I sort of didn't want to finish writing this story because of how it uses one of the characters: Mohammed, the terrible terrible terrorist guy. In fact, for about a month I didn't want anything to do with him AT ALL. For good reason. I even stopped writing his part of the story though I continued a bit on the surprise third part of the series. I simply don't feel like I should write more about him, shouldn't give _them_ more of any kind of publicity. I am terribly afraid that I would make his crimes look somehow _right_... 
> 
> So I had to rethink some shit. Thankfully, Suicide Squad (which is a bad movie but whose story is comprehensible, just don't expect the Joker and expect jumpy montage and WTF why did he do that? moments and you'll do fine.) gave me a few ideas... 
> 
> Also if I seem to have gone off radar, please message me on Tumblr (orlesienne) I'll probably answer from my phone even during work hours.


	9. Measly Wizard Wheezes

Maryam’s days were so busy, she barely had time to think. Thankfully, Elindra did ask more questions but stretched them over time. 

 

Every morning, Neria would wake her at the break of dawn and they’d both write their dreams in a little book. Elindra considered it practice as every Keeper had to be able to write Elvhen. It seemed the Keepers missed two very important letters of an alphabet that had twenty-eight of them, though and had made do with other symbols, just like Arab speakers had made do with numbers before keyboards supporting Arabic script had been built. 

 

Maryam had thus been useful in bringing the two missing letters to their knowledge, letters Elindra had been hoping to find in the Temple of Mythal anyway.

 

“You probably saved our lives if what you say is true.” she had commented when Maryam finally had the time and the energy to tell her What Pride Had Wrought one morning. “We will then wait for the Inquisition to sweep the forces there and hope our traps will catch the Red Templars and stall them. Mayhaps this will allow more Sentinels to live. I would like to question them as much as they can bear.”

 

Maryam had expressed her gratitude and praised her wisdom. Sadly, it didn’t make Elindra give her any kind of pause or rest time, though she did give her a gift: a silver pendant in the shape of the Hand of Fatima adorning the aravel’s sails. After receiving this gift in the morning, Maryam had to help with the preparation of the freshly hunted meat, as usual. 

 

She thanked her grandmother for being a superstitious old crone who made every daughter of hers rub their hands on rooster genitals to “make sure they’ll be the best cooks”, because it somehow prepared her to handling the raw meat and offals without puking all over it, even if it heaved her stomach, even after a while. 

 

Much like the children, her mundane tasks were given to her as a game. She’d have riddles to solve before she was allowed to get away from one, she’d have to run, hopping on one leg or silently enough to please the First Hunter if she was sent with a message somewhere else and she had to recite a song with the youngest ones about the different kinds of berries they could pick and which ones were poisonous. As condescending as being treated like a child could be, she enjoyed it, because it helped her understand more Common, made her feel more accepted when she offered a translation in Elven and simply made her feel useful, which was probably the point of raising kids that way, she assumed. Anyway, after her first few months on Thedas, it felt refreshing to be able to just  _ help _ anyone with anything. 

 

The whole clan would gather when the sun was the highest in the sky to eat a hearty and nutritious lunch of roots, berries and venison and then, Neria would try to teach Maryam magic. 

 

The instructions Elindra gave were clear. They had to find Maryam’s connection to the Fade, but it irritated Neria to no end, especially given their lack of success. 

 

“You aren’t connected to the Fade, you’re just a whirlwind of it!” Neria grunted one day as Maryam once again opened her eyes apologetically. 

 

“I’m a whirlwind of Fade?” Maryam asked. 

 

“I tried to find you in the Fade one night as you slept.” Neria confessed. “I… I know I shouldn’t have. And you were sleeping in there. I didn’t dare wake you, because I didn’t know it was even possible! I didn’t want to wake you, lest I break a protection you might have against spirits of any kind or unleash a power you could not control... The denizens of the Beyond do stay quite far away from the perimeter of the camp now that you’re here. What if you waking up made you call upon them, even unknowingly?”

 

Maryam felt a bit of apprehension fill her heart, but she was strangely calm upon learning that spirits fled her like pest. Maybe because it meant she couldn’t be possessed. 

 

Studying magic was not at all and yet exactly like science. She made experiments in a methodological manner, but the results weren’t always the same. For example, when she entered the meditating trance, she would sometime wake up immediately and feel like she was on drugs or open her eyes after four hours, feeling like only seconds had gone by while Neria was holding a knife in her hands, ready to strike an abomination in the making. She didn’t really mind when Neria apologised profusely. She knew abominations were feared and she knew why. 

 

In the end, it’s Neria’s words that put them on track.  _ A whirlwind of Fade _ , she had told her. Maryam thought it out, remembering the very vivid dream she strung Solas along in Halamshiral, conjuring a TARDIS and then Hogwarts... 

 

“Maybe we’re doing it the wrong way.” Maryam said. “Maybe I shouldn’t try to reach magic from within the waking world but rather from the Beyond?” she speculated. 

 

Neria’s eyes were two big saucers. However, they agreed. After several days of weighing the pros and the cons they knew of, they agreed that Neria would try to seek Maryam out again and they would try to practice magic in the Fade. 

 

That night, Maryam and Neria settled in their cots in the cramped little room of the Keeper’s aravel. Both drank a potion so that they would fall asleep at the same time and probably wake up at the same hour too.

 

Maryam felt the darkness creep into her brains and, exhausted, fell asleep next to her friend and tutor. 

 

*

* *

*

 

This time, it wasn’t the lake, it was Paris Comic Con. Fatima and Maryam had just finished Dragon Age Inquisition, she remembered, and fashioned costumes for cosplays. Fatima was dressed as Leliana, the hood and wig hiding her hair as was appropriate for her standards of modesty. Maryam had opted for a Lavellan cosplay. She had applied the vallaslin carefully with henna rather than other body paint because she thought about keeping it for a while. Fatima had applied it with care. 

 

“Wow.” she heard. 

 

Between Fatima, browsing a comic stall, and Maryam, Neria looked like another Dragon Age Cosplay. However, Maryam knew her ears were not latex. 

 

The elf was looking around, amazed by the faceless figures around them. The stalls were bright and detailed, in comparison. What truly seemed to scare Neria, though, was how high the ceiling was above them in the Grande Halle in La Villette, as if a wide expanse of starless sky was about to crash over them. 

 

Maryam laughed and caught her arm. 

 

“Welcome to Paris Comic Con!” she exclaimed.

 

“You have blood writing?” Neria whispered, still looking dumbfounded. 

 

“A replica made of Henna, a plant from my parents country. My mom was positively horrified by how I desecrated the inks with pagan designs.” Maryam chuckled. 

 

“As if you were drawing penises on your arm with the blood ink?” Neria teased, making the human laugh. There was a reason why they liked each other. “Can you change the dream?” the First asked very seriously. 

 

And just like that, she was in her room and Fatima’s. It was the modern version. It was familiar and it was soothing. the French woman threw herself onto her bed like she would at the end of an exhausting day. 

 

“You’ve done this before?” Neria asked. “Shaping your dreams?”

 

“Once.” Maryam said. “The man who sent me to you met me here as I slept. I think he knew what… What I am. And what it entails, magically-wise.”

 

“Did you try casting magic with him?” Neria said. 

 

“No.” Maryam answered. “We just travelled to places I knew, some of them I visited, others… Others from legends and books and other artistic works I enjoyed.” she weaved, thinking about explaining television, but finding herself very tired. She yawned. 

 

“We should practice a bit of magic.” Neria pointed out. “I might get some rest because I am asleep in the real world. But I highly doubt you are getting any at all. You truly feel real, despite us being clearly in the Beyond.”

 

“I am a Fixed point in the Fade and in the Waking World and the whirlwind you see is the Veil not knowing what to do with me?” Maryam asked. 

 

“I think so. It’s the only possible explanation.” Neria told her. “However, I fear what it would mean for the world… And yours…”

 

“Do not concern yourself with my world.” Maryam told her, her smile forced and sad. 

 

Neria knew not to push. She had sat down on Fatima’s bed, but she rose. She had no staff, but it was the first thing she asked Maryam: conjure some. It amazed them. 

 

She could not do exactly anything. She could let her imagination wander and create things, but she could not exactly impose her will on anyone. Or Neria, actually, being the only person present… 

 

“Unless strong emotion and distress amplifies it?” Maryam said, remembering Florianne’s base and how she had moved within without alerting the Inquisition who had been searching it. “I remember wishing to be invisible and running through a city without anyone noticing me.”

 

“Well… That means your powers can grow.” Neria said. “And how do you grow?”

 

“Practical experimentation!” Maryam told her, determined. 

 

“Now, let’s try actual magic. It shouldn’t be hard.” the First announced. “I will be ready to put out any fire.” she added, dropping into a specific stance Maryam called her battle stance. 

 

The French woman knew exactly what to do, having practiced the motions so much in the real world now that she could literally do them while she was asleep. However, the two women expected to have more success in the Dream World. It made them a bit giddy. Maryam though managed to focus, treating it as work. Her mind razor sharp, she visualised a fireball.

 

*

* *

*

  
  


“ _ Worth! _ ” Maryam croaked in English, her throat sore from breathing the fumes, but a smile plastered on her face. 

 

“Never again.” Elindra scolded her apprentices, before turning around to salvage the smoking pile of ashes that had been their aravel. At least, she didn’t make a triple kill out of it. Maryam grinned, still high on her little magical achievement. 

 

Neria was kneeling, equally blackened in soot, but she did grin when her teacher was gone, leaving them to clean the mess. 

 

Maryam had done magic. Actual magic that had translated into the world. The only way she could be happier was if Hagrid came down from the skies on Sirius Black’s infamous motorbike handing out her Hogwarts acceptance letter, all green ink on yellow parchment. 

 

“So… Do you want to see how we build aravels?” Neria asked, looking at the cinders of their living quarters.

 

“Are you actually allowed to do that?” Maryam asked.

 

“You’re not the first of the quick children we taught in our ways and you somehow already belonged, with your unusual powers, unusual tongue, unusual pride... “

 

“Humans have plenty of pride.” the French woman countered. 

 

They were debating the point of learning a Dalish secret in the middle of the night, covered in soot after breathing toxic fumes and nearly killing their teacher. So it went without saying that both decided to practice Maryam’s newfound magical powers with a bit of Keeper magic… Borrowing the Master Crafter’s tools, including a specific axe whose edge lasted longer by way of enchantment. 

 

“How do you say enchantment?” Maryam asked.

 

Neria supplied the word. It wasn’t much different than the word for “blessing” or “ _ djinn _ ”, actually. As they worked gathering the proper woods, Maryam asked for more words and Neria quizzed her on those her human friend used, but did not exist in her version of the tongue. They ended up talking about her work, with the neologisms that came with them… 

 

The spell was simple, and yet, Maryam felt hindered by something she thought might be the Veil when she tried to reach for it. After a second botched attempt, the women agreed to let Neria weave the wood with the spell. However, Maryam was a civil and electrical engineer. She did bridges and dams and power grids as well as urban planning. A boat with wheels was not exactly her domain, but she still had many ideas to improve on it, from space management to waste disposal in the potions lab: a sink-like contraption with a basin to empty whenever drained liquids have been dumped. She’d have to tell them about dry toilets. They could probably sell the stuff to human farmers. Or she could, because round ears.

 

Maryam tried to cast the fireball again in the waking world, but only managed a small flame at the price of a great expenditure of energy she was loathe to call mana. 

 

“Hmm... “ Neria pondered, her finger underneath her pointed chin. “Maybe the Veil does hinder you whenever you try to cast magic. Are you like a Spirit who cannot impose her will on this side of the Veil?”

 

“I did manage to cast a small flame.” Maryam pointed out, stopping in her tracks too. “Some mages only have the connection to the Fade and hardly any power. Maybe I’m one of those.”

 

“Then you need to learn to wield a weapon.” Neria said. “You are at risk. The clan cannot defend someone who cannot defend themselves.”

 

The morning was now starting to roll, the camp coming to life in its dawny light filtered by the trees. Maryam and Neria had started to wheel the aravel to the place where they had yet to clean the remains. A few curious clansmate had gathered there, not at all worried. The Keeper probably warned them, then. 

 

However, the two women were way too exhausted to clean up the mess. They got into the brand new aravel, empty of all the trinkets and books and scrolls Elindra and her predecessor had gathered over the years. 

 

The sight made Maryam grimace and her heart chill. She was the reason all of the documents and supplies were lost. A great wave of shame suddenly washed over her, instantly waking her up. She immediately went outside and gathered the ashes of the aravel and realised…

 

Her bag had been in this aravel too. Her bag, from her world, with the newspapers in it, the Epica t-shirt she wasn’t wearing, her polyester jeans, she had discarded to use the warmer leather and wool breeches she had been given by the elven family in Halamshiral. 

 

Maryam clutched her shoulder blades, shivering, trying not to reel back from the loss, as if it had been a physical slap in the face. Feeling the plastic of the faux leather of her N7 jacket while doing so, opposed to the actual wool sweater, the thin mail guard and heavy leather coat, helped her calm down. She had not lost  _ everything _ , but now she had only that one thing left…

 

_ And her Dread Wolf bag was gone. _

 

She felt so bad for having laughed. Treated it like  _ a fucking Pentakill _ , but this was not casting her ultimate ability in a MOBA: this was real. They had almost killed themselves and Elindra this night. Throwing herself into her work routine, she didn’t go to sleep until the Keeper ordered it. Maryam could not reach the Fade at all anyway in this state. It could also have been dangerous. The Beyond was not a prairie on which to settle one’s little house atop a grassy hill. Forgetting this one rule that the real world was a real thing hit Maryam hard. 

 

She was extra careful with her budding magical powers, conjuring the flame every now and then to warm her body as well as strengthening her connection to the Fade while she was awake. She worked twice as hard to her chores, more often than not, shovelling the muddy snow from the main areas, and started lessons on more practical pursuits too, like how to wield a dagger efficiently, as Neria had suggested. The practice helped forgetting, helped keeping calm and collected. 

 

She dreamt of her brother this night. She was kicking a football he was trying to catch, only to miss it, letting it rebound on the wall. Over time, she aimed at his shins, his bearded jaw, his forehead. The last ball she kicked, he stopped with his forehead. His whole body cracked like glass from the point of impact on his skull, the blood staining the shards of him red.

 

She woke up to Neria stroking her hair and Elindra’s singing. Maryam started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided I would update up until the Arbor Wilds thing and then start publishing the second part, mostly because I have a painful time writing anything Skyhold related with Maryam since it's really tied to KTTS and I don't want to get anything wrong, so I rewrite that part a lot. It's also become really hard to make it understandable how Maryam evolves and changes. You're about to see the first parts of it in the next chapters anyway, please let me know what you think.


	10. The Force Awakens

The Red Templars made themselves known rather quickly. True to her word, Elindra had her best scouts monitor the forest for threats. They also laid out traps, leaving easy targets behind that were finished with a knife or an arrow. However, they were better equipped and more numerous. It was only a matter of time before they attacked, so they had several contingency plans in place, including one, a last resort Maryam wasn’t even sure would work, but still, Elindra insisted they followed it. 

 

It started at midday with a sort of Molotov Cocktail thrown onto an aravel sail. They probably hoped to provoke a chaotic reaction out of them, but fires were the Dalish’s worst enemy. They optimised the aravels positions to avoid its propagation, which was very fortunate, otherwise Maryam would have wiped out the clan the night they discovered she could use magic in the Fade. 

 

And they were ready. Maryam too, if a bit shivering, and not only from the cold. 

 

“Relax.” Neria told her. “Empty your mind, focus.” 

 

Maryam drew a deep breath and released, trying to will her head not to think about the imminent battle. She thought of Solas. Did he have to empty his mind too before lying through his teeth? When she opened her eyelids, the world was cold, and she saw clearly. 

 

The first armoured man made an apparition though the canopy of trees and she realised why they hadn’t chosen another time. Fighting in the dark in a snowy forest would have been extremely complicated. 

 

She heard the Dalish battlecries, the children and elderly, were hidden with the clan’s elder and the sick Keeper already moving to another place they had scouted long ago. 

 

Maryam had no time to be be startled by her own performance on the field. She had impressed everyone with her razor sharp focus and determination to hit her target with her shuriken like weapons. Today, everything was clear, precise and fixed. She wondered if Fatima felt it as well when she was aiming with her Famas.

 

A Red Templar Behemoth broke the treeline and that’s when panic hit the Dalish clan. They were mostly used to skirmishes, not such a frontline battering assault. Neria called a retreat to Plan B when Felhamin fell at her feet, his own axe embedded in his skull by a nasty looking woman with red teeth. She wore no helmet, her long hair had turned crimson and stiff.  

 

As they ran, Maryam’s battle focus abated, replaced with apprehension. Plan B? Would it only work for the one who had drank from the Well of Sorrows? Well, The Woman of Many Years had appeared to Merrill, but it was to her own benefit, she wanted to elude her potential death at the hand of the Warden, then. 

 

The statue was exactly like it had been in the game. A tall woman like figure with dragon wings and a horned helmet carved in stone. She hadn’t realised that the sun was setting, though, the days still short and yet so intense. Her feet in the snow, she didn’t feel anymore and the running warmed them almost pleasantly. 

 

_ The Wilds are not snowed in, in the game _ … Maryam thought. In fact, the writers had said on Twitter the game happened over the course of several years. With what she pieced together, it seemed the Conclave happened only a bit more than a year ago. Timelines were probably screwed up by that Seer...

 

The French woman found a rock outcropping to settle with the archers that were left. Ralaferin was losing a lot of ground to defend the Sentinels of the Temple, a sacrifice the ancient beings could never repay or never would. Again, Maryam mourned her negative impact on those around her, especially the clan that had, over the course of a mere month, acted as a family to her.

 

Felhamin had showed her to manipulate metals, told her their names in Common and in their broken Elvhen. Sathia had brought distant cooking lessons back on the table when, as they spared to hone her dagger skill, she mentioned missing her mother’s  _ couscous _ and wished she had watched her prepare it. She had then showed her many meals to expand her Thedas recipe book.

 

Sathia too had been on the floor, her head missing, having probably rolled out a bit farther away. 

 

Maryam hid behind the archers so they wouldn’t see her focus disappear, her control slipping through her fingers like the fine flour dust in a tamis. 

 

She was hyperventilating again, her throat constricting and coiling around itself. 

_ Bad timing. Bad timing. _ She managed to calm herself and felt again like she was swimming with purpose in cold waters. 

 

A shout from Neria managed to draw her attention. Maryam hit her third templar right in the forehead, but she was not in the mood for quips that could become deadly for her when the  _ BOOM! HEADSHOT! _  would reveal her position. 

 

She shivved one of the more lithe red abominations with knives for hands, managing to get hurt in the process by some miracle. She ducked, half bent over, her back hurting like mad, she even crawled to reach the altar. 

 

The words weren’t translated half as bad in the Game. 

 

“HURRY!” Neria yelled as she blocked a few arrows with a shield and burnt others with a wall of fire. 

 

“We few who travel far,” Maryam called, her voice too stable, too strong. This was not her. She’s supposed to be panicked. “Call to me, and I will come, without mercy, without fear. Cry havoc in the moonlight, let the fire of vengeance burn, the cause is clear.”

 

Her mouth dry, she waited, hoping this would not fall on deaf ears, hoping the link with the Well was not necessary. 

 

After a few long minutes during which she heard rather than saw comrades fall, Maryam held the pendant Elindra gave her in her hand. 

She thought of her mother.

 

“I’m sorry, Mom _. _ ” she whispered, letting a tear fall onto the hand, in the center of the carved pupil. 

 

She closed her eyes. Her hand closing around the khamsa so hard, she nicked the skin of her palm.  _ If only those templars could just die already _ ... 

 

A strong icy wind went through Maryam, chilling her to the bone. Silence fell on the clearing. A white light, as if her face was turned to the sun, blinded her, even through her closed lids. Her lungs burned with fire and she felt like turning on her heels and unleash death and destruction on her enemies. 

 

When she came to, the sun was up and Neria had her hands on her human friend’s temples, massaging them softly, a soothing gesture that was encouraging her to go back to sleep. 

 

“Mythal’s Chosen has awakened!” The elf exclaimed. 

 

_ Oh… Solas… I understand why you dislike the Dalish so much now.  _

 

*

* *

*

 

For some reason, the Inquisition’s ravens still managed to find them, despite their camp having been severely hit, its original site burnt to the ground (Maryam shivered thinking about it) and the new one being so small in comparison. A lot of their able bodied warriors had died, including the Master Crafter. Thankfully, his apprentice was already mending their weapons, their aravels and the halla harnesses with a commendable seriousness and a diligence. The situation was dire. The Inquisition’s forces, full of shemlen from Orlais and Ferelden, were marching, hoping to arrive at the former Dalish campsite in good time. They had to remove their non-combattants from the battlefield before it became worse and were subjected to human prejudice. Such a big army was bound to have bad seeds.

 

“I should have called it sooner.” Elindra said, as she bent over, shaking and sweaty, planting seeds in the freshly dug holes that were to be her clansmen graves. 

 

The dead were buried quite hastily and soon, a show of hands was made to count those who elected to stay to lie in wait for the enemy. A dead Red Templar was a living Inquisition soldier and a better chance at getting rid of Corypheus, everyone surmised. The Keeper and her apprentices looked at each other when hearing a hunter say this.  _ A dead Templar is a living Sentinel,  _ the three women thought _. _

 

Maryam chose to stay. 

 

First, because, much like the Inquisitor, she seemed to have become some sort of divinely touched the day of the attack and was scared that her chickening out would mean the Ralaferin clan would give up on everything. 

 

And like the Inquisitor, she only vaguely remembered feeling cold and hot and, by coincidence, she insisted, by providence, Neria clamored,  _ she _ had killed every Red Templar battling against them in the clearing. And she had said an Elvhen incantation on a known Altar of Mythal, not two days of travel away from a temple to her glory. 

 

_ Did Mythal… ? _

No. She was certain it wasn’t Mythal. She would have shown herself, turned into a dragon… But what was it? Maryam wondered? It defied all logics, Thedas’s and Earth’s. Maryam wasn’t even in the Fade and still couldn’t cast more than a flame no bigger than what was needed to light a cigarette. How could she had produced a shockwave so powerful and so divine that it would sweep a clearing of enemies while sparing all her allies?

  
  


This was a load of bullshit, Maryam thought, but she had only tried to dissuade Neria and Elindra. Both had decided to reign in their religious fervour with their offworlder friend, but not with their brethren. Maryam ground her teeth and bore with it. Just like with Havard, the Dalish had helped her when they could have simply put an arrow into her and left her in a ditch. Instead, they had taken her in and “raised her” among their children, formed her at magic, combat and offered companionship, friendship even! In turn, she felt useful in teaching them what she knew, using her new skills and… Well, she had started to actually believe Mythal was truly powerful enough to be a goddess of her own right, one she might even like to worship, at that. Doubt was the essence of belief, her father had said. Doubt is good because it makes us question the world around. Doubt that there is a God and you will soon be reminded of Their existence. This was one of the reasons why Maryam had studied science. Doubt led to religion, she didn’t want to be tied to a religion anymore. 

 

But now she was in a world with magic, a world that defied scientific method and concepts. A miracle had happened, even as she had stimulated it, she had doubted that Mythal would answer and had been reminded of Her existence. Now, she just had to keep in her favour, she guess… It wasn’t something very hard to do as a Dragon Age fan. 

 

After all, what did Flemeth liked? Polite and obedient children, with the occasional sassy witty remark, embracing their destiny and duty… People who helped her get her revenge… Wisdom. Maryam thought of the final cutscene of the game. “ _ Old friend _ ” she’d called him. She smiled internally. Of course she’d like someone who used to be baldy’s old friend, no matter what would happen in a few months. 

 

Neria received new letters via raven somehow. This time, upon glancing at the written form to keep the symbols at the forefront of her mind, despite still being illiterate, she noticed their slant on some papers being different. 

 

“I’ve got a letter from the Inquisition. This one is from The Commander, not Sister Leliana.” The First told her Keeper, showing the papers. 

 

Maryam looked at the old woman, shaking with what she first thought was rage. 

 

The Inquisition forces wanted to use their old campsite for their first foothold. Since they had repelled an assault there with few soldiers, they hoped to gain more ground from this point to the hot spot of the conflict.

 

“We can’t let them enter the Temple first.” Elindra said, her hands tightening into fists at her sides.

 

“But the Red Templars will! They punch their way to the inner sanctum… Only the Inquisition can match this kind of force.” Maryam said. 

 

“Then we must prevent them to do so.  Call me foolish, for all that you know, you can’t deprive me of my pride. We need to reclaim our heritage.” Elindra ranted, frustration now evident in her shaking body.

 

Or was it sickness? She had a strange way to express her last wish, Maryam thought, feeling like her heart was a stone sinking in her stomach.

 

This woman just wanted to see the Temple her ancestors made before she died.

 

“Maybe… maybe we can avoid the Sentinels.” Neria proposed. “Lie in wait for Samson and Corypheus. Help the Inquisitor catch up.”

 

“You’re talking of outsmarting beings that are thousands of years old while taking a battering ram to the butt!” Maryam snapped to the First. 

 

“Maybe we can talk to them.” Neria pleaded. “We have to try.”

 

“I don’t fancy ending up skewered like a --brochette-- by Ancient Elves, dammit!”

 

“We will be trying with or without you, Maryam.” Elindra decided, her hands holding her hip in natural looking gesture, but Maryam knew was a way to help herself stay up.

 

She wanted to help her find a seat, like she so often would in the metro with old or disabled people. But here, it would be an insult to her pride, and Maryam knew a lot about pride. 

 

Maryam was first watch this night and barely slept afterward. This plan was terrible. 

 

*

**

*

 

This plan was even more than terrible. It was the shittiest plan of the history of shitty plans. Seriously, a donkey must have shat it on a pile of dog shit and was currently eaten by a pig waiting for the digestion process to be complete so it could be shat one last time, Maryam thought grimly as she tried to shake the chill from her bones.

 

_ Don’t endure.  _ She heard her sister’s voice bark in her ear. Mottos from when she went through boot camp’s worst parts, camping in the wilderness, recreating campaign situations. Almost dying of hypothermia. She lived to joke about it at least. Maryam wasn't so sure she was as resilient as her big sister. 

 

The Dalish were trekking in the snowy mud of the Arbor Wilds, Légion style, march or die. It stuck to her boots, to her breeches, to her thighs. She had kept her N7 Jacket on, not even thinking about parting with her last Earth garment, but regretted it now, because it was stained too.

 

She was cold, she was bloodied from their skirmishes through the tall trees, pressing around them as the Red Templars did, making the atmosphere oppressing, between greys and red. It wasn't the sunny tropical rainforest from the game with colourful animals and plants, no, no, no. It was winter in Thedas, a world without global warming, and it looked nothing like a jungle. There were vines, sure, but there were also the grey-brown snow melting from the slightly warmer atmosphere of the place than, let's say, their first encampment in its grand clearing exposed to the sky and letting the cold air breathe its wind through the sails of the Aravels. There was no soundtrack to pump her up either. 

 

It made for a miserable march, especially when she was less good at leaving no trace.

Elindra too, was very bad at discretion, the trip was taking its toll on her. From shaking and pale, she had gone yellow and sweaty, a colour Maryam knew too well. However, she had no time to worry or even be reminded of her father’s last days. She had to trudge through the gloomy forest. Thankfully, the Ralaferin hunters knew their job. They covered their tracks by faking animal paws, somewhat artistically. Sometimes they even quietly argued when they appeared too close to each other, or too far. (#Artists)

 

It’s during one of those calm, collected and silent discussions, that they arrived. 

 

“Sweet Creators.” Elindra suddenly exclaimed as they reached the end of a collapsed tunnel that had been half snowed in. She dropped to her knees.

 

The Temple of Mythal. 

 

Everyone had been warned not to do more than observe from afar. The Sentinels would attack on sight and with license to kill. This thought made Maryam’s own contemplation short. They protected their last home. It was nothing but a well hidden ruin, but it was even more sacred to them than to the Dalish and they’ll fight to their very last breath to protect it from the heathens. Maryam was reminded of the Berberian people right then and there. 

 

Maryam looked at the two pillars on each side of the bridge, pulsing with power, scattered limbs tinged with the telltale crimson of Red Lyrium added to the dark blood. She felt her pendant on her chest warm up, making her slightly uncomfortable. She focused on setting up camp while Neria arranged the first guard rotations, allowing every member of their party, but the unlucky one who’d drawn the shortest stick, to rest a little and eat some bitter roots that tasted a bit like liquorice that reminded the French woman of home, along with some very American-like jerky.

 

They were stuck between two factions, now: The harsh Sentinels, guardians of a lost lore ready to defend it with their lives, and a Magister Darkspawn Lord hell bent on world domination. The Inquisition had only been marching for a few days and, according to Neria, only arrived at the rendezvous spot Tamlen was guarding a day ago. And that was only the scouts tasked with finding them to settle their forward camp.

 

The attack everyone had been readying for did not take long to happen. Surprisingly, it came from the Red Templars rather than the Sentinels.

 

Maryam was cold, Maryam was tired, but Maryam was bloodied. When she fought the knights, she still couldn’t believe her luck, her reflexes. She felt pliable, flexible like she had never thought she’d be. Yet, she felt restricted, constricted into a tiny, cold metal box, not allowing a thought out of line. The pendant beneath her leather breastplate, The Hand of Fatima, was hot, though. She imagined her sister’s hand on her shoulder, giving her strength, making her heart beat. She imagined she was there, guiding her through the motions. Fatima was a soldier, a warrior. Maryam had to become it. She wasn’t bad or even good at fighting, but she understood better why the elder Al Ghilani would sometimes focus on a task, forgetting all else. Even when it was just making homemade burgers. 

 

Maryam saw an arrow stop an inch before her left eye and fall, the blue shimmer of Neria’s barrier fizzling out. Turning around and looking for the enemy made her realise... They were there. The Sentinels. They were at the bridge and in the canopy of trees and behind broken statues. The force field at the bridge she knew from the game had gone up and Maryam, strong with the knowledge Elindra had imparted to her could see… 

 

Elindra had done it while they rested. She had made the plan work. It was golden, just like in the game, but Maryam had been trained to see her mentor’s own mana in the works, despite her own lack of power.  _ Every little bit helps. _

 

“Alright. Time to show them our backs.” Neria yelled, her eyes glancing over her mentor briefly. Her lips pursed and her chin wobbled a second. “Let’s follow the plan!”

 

They were too few, though. They had been slowed by their bags full of materials to make traps and barricades. The Sentinels in presence, both behind the field and around them, hidden and observing, did not move if it wasn’t to execute a Red Templar with a well placed spell or an arrow, never coming from the same place. Elindra was too curious though. She whipped out moleskine and charcoal to draw the doors and got a bit closer each time, to get a better look. Maryam saw how angry it made the Sentinels. 

 

All of them were relieved to see the arrow plant itself before her feet rather than in her head. The message was clear. You’re welcome to help, we will help you stay alive in return, but you’ll come no closer. 

 

Elindra looked devastated, but Maryam was too busy helping Eamane with a Red Lyrium behemoth that had thankfully fallen into their trap to look closer.

 

“You need to wait until the Inquisition comes, you can sweep it up once it’s over.” Maryam told her they were finished with this first wave. (She hoped there wasn’t a second, but still…). 

“But how much will the battle destroy?” The old woman lamented. 

 

Maryam did not answer. She looked to the bridge and noticed the elves behind had relaxed positions, their hands far from their weapons. She sighed. 

 

She hoped the Inquisition came fast. 

 

*

**

*

 

Maryam was the first to wake up. 

The camp was fast asleep, Therion was on guard duty. She relieved him and took his place. 

 

This Temple, much like Halamshiral, was frustrating. Again, she was on the sidelines of the main action and yet still was in danger. Granted now, she knew to defend herself better, but she thought of it… How?  This focus, this destruction… She felt it was bad for her. It wasn’t her. She wished she could go back to sleep, but she knew even if she tried, she couldn’t do it. The sun was rising. It was the hour of the  _ Fajr _ . Maryam held the Khamsa close to her heart. She had a canteen full of water.

 

For the first time in ages, Maryam knelt toward the Temple doors and opened the canteen. She washed her hands carefully. She gargled a mouthful of water. She blew her nose to empty her nostrils, then washed her face. Each arm, starting with the left, was covered in water up to the elbow and rubbed . She wiped her head over with wet hands, the three fingers between the little finger and the thumb of both hands joined together before washing her feet up to her ankles. 

 

She knelt, her hands in the air. 

 

But the words wouldn’t pass her mouth. She could not say that God was the greatest, for she did not believe in Him. She could not say she was not one of the polytheists, because she believed more in Freyja, Athena, Tanit and Mythal than in God. She did not pledge her life to anyone but the people around her, helping her, teaching her. 

 

After long excruciating minutes watching the sky turning from blue green to purples, Maryam spoke: 

 

“I have been found, yet I am lost. I destroyed. I created. I shared and I have taken. What am I?”

 

“ _ You are unique, sister. _ ” A soft familiar voice said next to her. 

 

Maryam turned around to see who had spoken, but she was already waking up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who guessed now please don't say anything.
> 
> Again I'm having a hard time writing some parts of this story but I'm commited to it.   
> Thankfully, Mary going back to writing about Gwen revitalised me (sort of!)
> 
> Have a nice week, y'all !


	11. Red Sky at the Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really sorry I'm not updating as much  
> I am in a bad place at the moment and I'm also rewriting all the post Inquisition stuff
> 
> I am just overly worried about this planet and decided to stave off the feeling by concentrating on another fandom...  
> For which I even have a Dragon Age AU!  
> It's the kind of thing I'm writing to stave off writer's block, don't hesitate to swing by if you like Overwatch. 
> 
> These series **are not abandoned**

The dream left her feeling frustrated, but she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. She had always hated those super vivid dreams, interesting dreams in which you woke up at the worst possible moment. 

 

The Ralaferin Clan was ready. Maryam was and wasn’t at the same time. What if the Red Templars massacre from the week before was a one off? What if whatever happened did not reoccur? What if they ended up all dead before the Inquisitor could get to them? All of it because of her?

No. She already spared them a swift death of their Keeper at the hand of the Sentinels. The Red Templars would not have been kinder. Maryam did her best. She breathed in and out to calm herself and repeated it in her head until she felt cool and became hard as steel on the inside.

 

The first trap of the day springing had all of them turn back into battle mode, the focus coming back to chill Maryam to the bone, it’s edge cutting her brains and ears to make them fit into the soldier’s box. Again, as if she had done that for all her life, she threw her shurikens and even killed a Templar that had been too close to Neria for comfort.

 

When the first wave was dispatched, thankfully, with no casualties on their side, they took a second to drink and breathe. The sun was not yet at its zenith, but a dragon was circling it. 

 

“Corypheus is coming.” Maryam said. 

“Reset the traps, everyone!” Neria ordered. “I’ll be checking on the Keeper.” The woman then mumbled, more for herself than for anyone else. 

 

Elindra was at the bridge, looking at it as if she was a child in front of a Disney movie. There were tears in her face that reminded her of her mother when her father died. Her skin was getting yellow and sallow. Neria whispered to the woman in hushed tones, holding her close. 

 

Looking at them reminded Maryam of her own dad’s death. He too had looked like a yellow candle in the end. She wondered if Elindra had the same ailment. 

 

They were interrupted by the signal from their sentry. New Red Templar wave incoming. And others too. Wearing Warden armour, according to the whistling. A stone settled itself in the pit of Maryam’s stomach. Neria was suddenly near her too and drew her into her arms briefly, too briefly. 

 

Maryam felt nothing. 

 

The battle resumed, but the traps had only been half ready, and only a third of them were sprung, the rest being rendered useless by hasty setups or wary enemies. They had been caught unawares. 

 

Maryam was hyper aware of the khamsa, hot against her skin when she flitted about the battlefield without a thought or a care for the people behind the masks of the enemies she maimed or killed. When she was pinned down by a bound warden warrior, she conjured her flame at the tip of her finger and shoved it in her enemy’s nose, earning respite enough to disengage. She observed the man for a while: disoriented and hurt, he turned around, confused, before picking a new target. Maryam turned around as well, seeing how oblivious her enemies were of her now. She contemplated the havoc she could wreak in her enemy's ranks, but a voice stopped them all. 

 

“Drop your weapons, or your precious Keeper dies!”

 

Raleigh Samson had not been given justice. 

 

First, he was handsome. Or had been. His skin was as sallow and yellow as their sick leader’s and heavy black circles underneath his eyes made him look like more panda than human. 

 

His armour was heavy and large, cumbersome. It was a miracle that he could actually move in it, a true video game unrealistic armour. His hair was longer than the game suggested, if he was balding slightly, he still retained the air of someone who had turned hearts on his wake, his straight nose, his full lips, his high and noble cheekbones. 

 

He held Elindra in a chokehold. She was smiling. She had a literal dagger up her sleeve, one she shoved into her own unprotected stomach. 

 

Maryam joined the chorus of screaming Dalish. Her throat was raw like their shock, their anger immediate and actions swift. She fought and raged and when a shockwave of power dispatched all the Dalish and their human protégée. She hardly felt the pain. 

 

He was skeletal, made of bones more than flesh, the crystal on his jaw pulsing with his eyes. 

 

“There is another. Kill her.” The Ancient Darkspawn said, his low voice grating on every nerve of hers. 

 

“NO!” Neria yelled, rising on her feet, only to be smacked in the head by another warden. She was about to receive a sword in the belly when Maryam screamed: 

 

“You _won’t_!” She shouted in Common to him. 

 

And when they all turned to the First, the French woman did it again and made them forget the Dalish and herself, making them a cloak of shadows and death. 

 

_ Be invisible, Death will not find you, little brother. _

 

By some miracle, the powerful Magister did not find her either, even as he swept the air with what Maryam strongly suspected was magic. Instead, he focused on his main objective. 

 

Breaching the Temple of Mythal. 

Maryam knew what was coming. She positioned herself, ready to enter the temple once the barrier was destroyed by Corypheus’ deadly onslaught. Soon enough, the mummy like monster exploded, limbs thrown far and farther away. A human sprung to life, zipping, after the Red Templars, Usain Bolt style.

 

Never in her whole life had she run so much, so fast. She caught up with the Red Templars chasing the lone Sentinel that had survived the blast, and pushed one who fell, screaming, to his death below. Scared, the other templars slowed down, weapons ready, but Maryam was invisible to them still and pushed another, an abomination of red lyrium with no voice. 

 

“Run to the door!” Samson yelled again. 

 

They started to run faster. 

 

The focus was hurting her head so much, she considered dropping it, but she couldn’t. She had to get to the temple. The khamsa on her chest was burning her, but she endured it. ( _ Don’t endure. Survive, Soldier! _ ) She breathed in and out once they were finally at the end of the bridge where the Red Templars soon were caught into a new skirmish against the Sentinels. 

 

Maryam was spotted by one of them. The moment their eyes met, the mage nodded and Maryam’s skin was protected by an elegant and light magical barrier. Another Sentinel dropped a dagger to the ground as she passed by him, producing another from a thigh sheath for his personal use. 

 

When the Red Templars gained the slightest advantage, the Sentinels withdrew and the mage took Maryam by the elbow, dragging her with them. 

 

“ _Who are you?_ ” She asked in Elvhen.

 

“Maryam Al Ghilani. I think.” Maryam answered, a bit lost for a second. 

 

“A spirit turned flesh. Good.”

 

“-- _ Euuuuuuhhhh… _ \--”

 

They were running through the corridors too fast for her to formulate a question or take in the decor, the mosaics, the wolf statues, she just let herself be led, the onomatopeia floating behind them in the air. 

 

_ A spirit turned flesh? _

 

She recognised one room.

 

“Here! Samson is going to make a hole in the ground with explosives.” She yelled. 

 

“Suledin! Ready a team to meet them at the nearest choke point after that.” The mage ordered. 

 

The Sentinel that had slipped a dagger to her earlier, broke from the peloton and ran elsewhere. Maryam was unceremoniously dropped to the ground where she felt the focus ebbing off her, liberating her brains, the pain lifted away. However, another Sentinel, the one she had identified as Abelas came. 

 

“What is the quick child doing here?” He asked, looking annoyed. 

 

“She fought at our side. She could be of use.” The mage said, her speech fast and her accent hard to decipher.

 

“The others too, and yet, they weren’t invited. She should not be here.”

 

“ _ She _ can speak for herself,  _ \--for fuck’s sake-- _ .” Maryam snarled. 

 

Anger took over, feelings were coming back in full swing. Abelas turned to her, his lips a thin line and his eyes throwing deadly death rays.  _ Speak, quickling. _

 

“The Dalish clan I accompany and myself were stalling the Red Templars to make sure the Inquisition could come and deny an Ancient Magister turned Darkspawn the Well of Sorrows and plunge this whole world into a chaos that would allow him to rule it.”

 

“Oh, just that…” Abelas sarcastically drawled. “And will you tell me what this Inquisition of yours plans to do with one of our most sacred relics once their enemy is slain? Or what will they do to a people they did not expect to be alive, at best, despise at worst?”

 

She had guessed the difference when she briefly spoke with Solas and then, speaking with the Dalish. She suspected now the Dread Wolf had literally stooped to her language level, now. It was like speaking with her Moroccan cousins: they were speaking the same language, but not. It was a different dialect with a whole different accent, with words which, at first seemed to mean something else, but with context and adaptability, made sense. 

 

“Well, Corypheus is not defeated here. He is defeated in the Frostback Mountains.” Maryam told him, deciding that it didn’t matter if she revealed her origins to the Sentinels. She rose to her feet, straightened her spine. She was not scared anymore, her shield would be her pride. 

 

“Oh, really?” Abelas asked. “And how do you know that?” 

 

“The same way I knew you’d be here, defending this temple and advised the Dalish against searching the Temple or seek to contact you months ago.” 

 

“Where are you from?”

 

“Bussy Saint Georges, Ile-De-France, France. If you’re talking about my parents, they were born in Tlemcen and Oran, in Algeria.” Maryam added with a sneer. "This is irrelevant since yuou have no idea of what I'm talking about..."

 

Abelas’ eyes narrowed and magic swept through Maryam. Several emotions seemed to overwhelm him at once, strong enough to shake someone she always imagined as stoic and focused. She had to take advantage of the silence. First because they didn’t have a lot of time and second, because she had questions herself...

 

“The… Your comrade... She said I was a spirit turned flesh… What did she mean?” Maryam asked, afraid to know the answer.

 

But Abelas’ sneer did not reassure her. A Sentinel came and whispered at his ear. 

 

“You have weapons. You will be assigned to Suledin and Aranaevis. Hold your own and you may survive to join your  _ comrades  _ in the Inquisition.”

 

“They are respecting these grounds, I take it.” She mumbled, relief plain in her voice. 

 

Abelas, contempt suddenly leaving his eyes for simple curiosity, turned his back to her, not gracing her question with an answer. 

 

Maryam gripped the daggers she’d been given. 

Now that she was not focused on the fight anymore, she was reluctant to go back to it. She followed Aranaevis, the mage, her feet dragging on the tiles floor, looking around her, letting wonder finally enter her heart at the sight of the temple. All of this, lost to time and war...

 

The moment was broken when she heard the zapping of magic, the whooshing of lyrium enhanced powers and the clanking of the swords. She slowly drew back into this unhappy place that was Maryam the Warrior. 

 

*

* *

*

 

She was not exactly as efficient as the Sentinels, but they had only the minimum to do to help her. Gravely outnumbered, they still had to deploy troves of ingenuity to keep the fight going in a direction they wanted and Maryam reveled in the discovery of new traps, new fighting tactics. Still, they were even more desperate than the Dalish before the temple doors were breached. 

 

She hoped Neria was well and tended to by the Inquisition, now that the enemy force had most probably been cleared off. 

 

They were pushed more and more into the Temple, to the -- _ Saint des Saints-- _ . And soon, they were in the courtyard. The courtyard in which Samson was fated to die. Maryam smiled, stabbing in a body, relishing in the feeling of the blood spraying her face. Her head was hurting from being shoved into the box again. She felt like Robocop. Her mind wanted out so hard, she had to contain them there by willing herself to be good, to be the soldier she needed to be now. Thankfully, the Red Templars were coming…

 

And so was the Inquisitor. 

 

Hellen Adaar had been intimidating in a dress. She was downright scary in her armoured mage robes, wielding Fade energies with Mana and Anchor. 

 

In her team, there was several people, Solas, she spotted first, accompanying two women, one unknown, the other looking like it could be Morrigan. Cassandra and Cole were there too. So were Varric and Sera and… Hawke and Merrill accompanied by a tall and thin blonde man who met her eyes briefly (and made her shiver). The last person she spotted…

 

_ Alistair _ ?

 

“ _ What the fucking fuck? _ !” Maryam exclaimed in English.

 

Wasn’t he supposed to be dead ?

 

Aranaevis’ hand smacked the back of her head and soon, the focus was back. 

 

When Morrigan transformed, the woman she did not recognise ran after her. Guess the Witch of the Wilds was only stalled in her chase of the Well’s knowledge. 

  
All hell broke loose once the women’s ponytails, flags in the wind, raced past two lines made by the Sentinels and the Red Templars. Arrows, Fire, Ice, clashing swords. The dissonant melody kept Maryam’s battle focus going. 

 

And they were winning, The Inquisition members were a force to be reckoned with. The Sentinels and Abelas, magnificent in the middle of the fight with his greatsword, were not attacking, focusing on the now outnumbered Templars. 

 

“MOHAMMED! Freeze them!” Samson yelled.

 

_ Mohammed? _

 

The name made her mind further turn to ice. An icy rage that had been brewing for years in his absence. She turned around and saw him. 

 

His beard had been cleanly shaved, but he was also infected, his eyes red, his nails crimson crystals. He was walking among the warriors frozen in their various battle stances. Their eyes, though, especially the Inquisitor’s, were still theirs and seething. 

 

Despite the heavily accented Common Tongue, his voice was unmistakable.  

 

“You shall not pass.” He said. 

 

For a second, Maryam was stunned.  _ It was him. Here. In Thedas. _

_ And he was freezing other people in place. _

 

“Mohammed!” She yelled in turn. 

 

All eyes converged on her. She had forgotten all pretense at being invisible. She was not the third brother anymore. She was made of elder and steel.

 

“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” She yelled in French. “Gandalf?”

“Maryam?” Turning toward her, surprised, the man fumbled with the French words. “But… You’re… You’re dead!”

 

“I’m not. And The Inquisition will not let Samson drink from the Well of Sorrows.” She said in common. She continued in French. “They will pass and Samson will die here.”

 

“What is going on, Mohammed?” Samson asked. 

 

“Nothing, Raleigh.” Mohammed Al Ghilani assured him. “You will not hinder us, sister.” He continued in their tongue still. 

 

“You don’t know how the game goes, Mohammed.” Maryam countered, her finger pointed at the frozen heroes. “Corypheus is the villain. He will die at the hand of the Inquisitor. After having been denied Mythal’s servants’ wisdom...”

 

“You’re right. I should have played more after walking the bridge of Ostagar. Or... Maybe I should have listened to you more.” Mohammed said, his voice soft, like a caress. There was something in his words, something Maryam didn’t want to hear. Regret? Sorrow?

 

He was barely recognisable underneath the Red Lyrium infection. None if the mirth and jokes were to be found in him. And his beard, his magnificent beard he was so proud of. He said it made him look like dad. It was gone too.

 

“I did not expect to see you here. Or alive.  _ Fute-Fute _ ...” He started.

 

“Don’t you dare call me that after what you’ve done!” Maryam exclaimed, shocked by the use of the old childhood nickname. “ _ You. Just. Left _ .” she snarled.

 

“There is no good or bad. There is just survival.” Mohammed said, sounding bitter. “It’s too late now. I made my choices, I’m already punished for them. God had His angel strike me off the Earth into this Hell to die horribly... I’m simply using this power I have over others to help ease their passing in this equally doomed world.”

 

“What? Are you even listening to yourself?” Maryam choked on the words. What was he talking about? 

 

“I’m locking them in place.” Mohammed explained. “Corypheus is about to rule the world. It is inevitable.”

 

“But Corypheus is the villain of this game! He dies!”

 

“As I said… I should have listened to you more. Fatima was the strongest. You were not the wisest but… Of all of us, you’re the one who’s always made the best possible decisions. I tried to do the same… It didn’t go very well.” Mohammed said, sounding resigned. 

 

Maryam turned to the Inquisition. They looked angry, but Solas’ eyes confirmed her everything she had to know about the situation. She felt a stab of guilt smothered by the wicked edges of the box she had stuffed her mind in. She didn’t just had to. She wanted to. And  _ fuck _ his lame excuses.

 

“I just have to kill you to release them from your power.” She snarled, angrily, letting the battle focus drown her again. Her brains stunted, but her movements precise, she ran to the man who had been her brother, daggers hidden against her forearms. Her twin parried her strike with the shield he was holding and bashed her in the head with it. 

 

Maryam, on the ground, snarled loudly and felt the Hand of Fatima heat up again. Another battlecry, bellowed by a very angry elf with a bow sounded the end of the interlude and the beginning of act two of Massacre at the Temple Doors. The fight around them had resumed, now that the other combattants understood the language that was spoken once again. 

 

She rolled to dodge her brother’s sword and reached toward his unprotected armpit. 

 

The device Dagna had made to disable Samson’s armour made a noise that was terribly out of tune with the melody of the fight. Maryam was almost relieved to feel Samson’s battlecry and the Inquisitor’s own grunts and shouts. Hearing the frenzy with which the two of them fought fueled her own dagger strikes and kicks. Focused on her brother, his hesitation, his guilt, his sadness, she looked for an opening. However, he was on the defensive, only striking when he was certain he could land a blow and often, he missed, Maryam in turn dodging with swiftness. 

 

“Do you remember the last time we met?” Mohammed said, deciding this was the perfect time to speak and distract her, as she tumbled away from a stronger blow she parried with difficulty with her crossed blades.

 

Maryam briefly massaged her wrists together as Mohammed circled her, hidden behind the light buckler he wielded. It had been at his wedding to Assiyah. One of his childhood friends, his best friend back then, Michael, had been invited. A jewish guy. The groom’s mother and him had started to sing a jewish song. When the bride heard, she made a scene. Asked the filthy jew to get out before he invaded this country too. 

 

Mohammed had defended his anti-semitic wife’s right to kick out someone to whom he had himself sent an invite and had sent an RSVP in return, rather than uphold the basic respect and decency principles he was supposed to have been raised in. Maryam and Fatima had sung louder, Khadija taking Michael’s hand and saying he should stay, they had known each other for so long. Longer than they had known Assiyah. The whole Al Gilani part of the family had agreed that the bride was out of line. The Hadji family had wisely kept silent, outnumbered as they were. 

 

Maryam was not a good singer, but she found her usually monocord voice not too rusty. She let her lips stretch into a feral smile as she sang: 

 

“ _ Hava nagila, hava nagila, hava nagila, venishmecha! _ ”

 

Silently, Mohammed missed another sword arc she dodged by side stepping him. Slow to turn, he looked at her as if he was searching for something in her eyes. No, confused. Mohammed was confused.   

 

“I’m talking about the last time we saw each other, sis.” He repeated. “This is from before I left, at the wedding, not last we met. It was at Gare de l’Est...”

 

Maryam threw him an equally confused glance. 

 

“You’re mad.” She simply said, looking at the man before her. Lyrium must have made him lose his mind and memories. 

 

A clicking sound and the cold metal barrel of a gun was pointed to her ribs and Maryam screamed in pain, despite the fact that he hadn’t even fired. 

 

She heard a piano playing random notes that hurt her ears. She saw blonde hair and felt blood seeping between her fingers. 

 

Doubling over, she grabbed the cannon with one hand and, dropping a dagger, managed to wrench it from his grasp with a strong blow to his wrist. His pained shout was followed by an acute and unbearable pain on her scalp as her brother pulled at her hair, already coming out of her bun. The last time they fought like this, they had been ten years old, equals in height and force. It felt just like that day, Mohammed enhanced by Red Lyrium, Maryam feeling the Khamsa on her breast heat up and empower her, making her scream as they wrestled for control of the weapon. 

 

The bang that rung was not unlike the sound of a loud firecracker. Mohammed shouted again in pain, holding his pierced thigh. Maryam threw herself at him, sitting astride of his prone body. Feeling the khamsa heat again, she summoned her flame. 

 

“I’m sorry Maryam. I’m so sorry.” Mohammed whispered, his eyes glistening with something Maryam wasn’t ready to see.

 

“Sorry for what?” She shouted. “Sorry for leaving us for a band of frustrated teenagers thinking a woman’s highest calling is to be a sex slave? For following yet another religious crusade in a world you know next to nothing about? For removing another person’s ability to act and think?” She snarled. “I can’t forgive any of that!”

 

“I’m sorry I killed us.” Mohammed breathed out, pain in his voice, sorrow in his eyes. “I’m sorry I killed Fatima, sorry I killed Mom. Sorry I killed you.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Maryam asked, the confusion only distressing her. 

 

Instead of an answer, Mohammed, desperate, just headbutted her. Maryam, feeling her scars in her ribs hurt, dropped the gun and he reached for it, only to fall to the ground again under Maryam’s well timed sweep, his leg too weak from the wound to withstand his weight and the blow. She wasted no time in jumping on him again, this time, not hesitating and punching him in the face with her whole tight fist ablaze.

 

Once, twice, she lost count as her whole body heated up like a ball of flame.  She only stopped when Mohammed’s head was just a hole, red and black and full of debris of what looked like a broken clay jar. Her hands were hurting so much. She must have broken several phalanxes...  _ Mom always said he was thick in the skull _ , she thought absently as she stopped fell beside his body, tired. So tired. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YANA. Nuff said. 
> 
> Now this chapter is done, I can finally start to post the second story in this series.
> 
> Which will probably help me write more about it.


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